A Grammar of Koyra Chiini: The Songhay of Timbuktu (Mouton Grammar Library, 19)

Mouton Grammar Library Heath A Grammar of Koyra Chiini 1749 1999 Mouton Grammar Library 19 Editors Georg Bossong B...

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Mouton Grammar Library

Heath A Grammar of Koyra Chiini

1749

1999

Mouton Grammar Library 19

Editors Georg Bossong Bernard Comrie

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Jeffrey Heath

A Grammar of Koyra Chiini The Songhay of Timbuktu

W DE

G Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York 1999

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

1

Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heath, Jeffrey. A grammar of Koyra Chiini : the Songhay of Timbuktu / Jeffrey Heath. p. cm. - (Mouton grammar library ; 19) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 3-11-016285-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) l.Songhai language-Dialects-Mali-Tombouctou Region. I. Title. II. Series. PL8685.95.T66H43 1998 496'.5-dc21 98-34603 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heath, Jeffrey:

A grammar of Koyra Chiini: the songhay of Timbuktu / Jeffrey Heath. - Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1998 (Mouton grammar library ; 19) ISBN 3-11-016285-7

© Copyright 1998 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printing: Werner Hildebrand, Berlin. - Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

Contents

Abbreviations Map

1 Introduction 1.1 Generalities about Songhay 1.2 History and geography 1.3 Format of grammar 1.4 Transcriptional conventions 1.5 Literature review 1.6 Acknowledgements

xiii xv

l l 2 5 6 8 8

2 Overview 2.1 Brief outline of typical sentence and NP structures 2.2 Distinctive features of Koyra Chiini 2.3 Internal variation within Koyra Chiini

11 11 15 16

3 Phonology 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Oral vowels 3.3 Diphthongs 3.3.1 Short-nucleus diphthongs 3.3.2 Long-nucleus diphthongs 3.4 Nasalized vowels and word-final nasal consonants 3.4.1 Nasalized vowels 3.4.2 Word-final nasal consonants 3.5 Syllabification 3.5.1 General restrictions on particular consonants 3.5.2 Syllabic shapes of pronouns and grammatical morphemes 3.5.3 Syllabic shapes of monosyllabic stems 3.5.4 Syllabic shapes of nonmonosyllabic stems and words 3.5.5 Final long vowels in nonmonosyllabic stems 3.5.6 Nonfmal long vowels in nonmonosyllabic stems 3.5.7 Allowed and disallowed medial consonant sequences 3.5.8 Stem-initial consonant clusters 3.6 Consonantal assimilations and deletions 3.6.1 Nasal point-of-articulation assimilation 3.6.2 Liquid assimilation 3.6.3 Semivowel assimilation 3.6.4 Palatalization of velars 3.6.5 Geminate consonant simplification

17 17 18 18 19 21 21 21 22 23 23 24 25 26 27 27 27 28 29 29 29 30 31 31

vi

Contents 3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening 3.7.1 Contractions involving Imperfective ο 3.7.2 Contractions involving object and dative pronouns 3.7.3 Contractions involving CVV stems 3.7.4 Contractions of vowels over an intervening semivowel 3.7.5 Contractions involving demonstrative *woo 3.7.6 Phonology of Abstractive nominalizer -ey 3.7.7 Syncope 3.7.8 Deletion of word-initial vowels (apheresis) 3.7.9 Shortening of long vowels 3.7.10 Lengthening of morpheme-initial vowel after CVC syllable 3.8 Minor phonological alternations 3.8.1 Forms of the ISg pronoun 3.8.2 Forms of the 2Sg pronoun 3.8.3 Forms of -ije 'child' as compound final 3.8.4 Possessive wane before Definite di 3.8.5 Plural yo before postpositions and other particles 3.8.6 Verb-stem changes before derivational suffix -ndi 3.8.7 Shortened forms of "light" nouns before Rel kaa 3.8.8 Forms of unmarked and marked third person pronouns 3.9 Prosodies 3.9.1 Tonology 3.9.2 Stress, incorporation (tight compounding), and cliticization 3.10 Historical phonological notes 3.10.1 Word-final *b 3.10.2 Word-final nasals 3.10.3 Sibilants 3.10.4 Assimilation of *r, *y, *wto following consonant 3.10.5 Palatalization of velars 3.10.6 Loss of final short vowel 3.10.7 Shortening of original long high vowel in closed syllable 3.10.8 Stem-final *ey to oy 3.10.9 Loss of *g 3.10.10 Shifts among liquids 3.10.11 Loanword phonology

4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation 4.1 Personal pronouns 4.1.1 Person and number categories 4.1.2 Plural pronoun categories 4.1.3 Preference for plural over singular pronouns as possessors 4.1.4 Subject and Object forms of pronominals 4.1.5 Pronominal forms as possessors and before postpositions 4.1.6 Pronominal forms preceding and following nda 'and, with' 4.2 Demonstratives 4.2.1 Demonstrative pronoun

31 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 37 39 40 41 41 42 43 44 44 44 45 46 48 48 48 49 49 50 50 50 51 51 52 53 53 53 54 55 55 55 56 57 57 59 60 61 61

Contents

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.2.2 Frozen combinations of noun plus *woo 4.2.3 Demonstrative and deictic adverbs 4.2.4 Emphatic and Approximative modifiers of deictics Nominalizations 4.3.1 Abstractive nominal (-ey~ -rey) 4.3.2 Zero-derived nominals and minor nominalizations 4.3.3 Characteristic nominals (-koy, -koyni, -kom) 4.3.4 Participle and Ordinal (-nie) 4.3.5 Use of Infinitival ka as nominalization Morphology of adjectives 4.4.1 Verbs of adjectival quality 4.4.2 Adjectives as noun modifiers (suffix -o or zero) 4.4.3 Adjectives as NP heads with Absolute prefix iQuantificational adjectives 4.5.1 Modifying and Absolute forms of simple numerals 4.5.2 Compound numerals 4.5.3 Other quantificational modifiers Nominal compounds 4.6.1 N-N (tight) and NP-N (loose) compounds 4.6.2 "Mother" and "child" compounds (-naa, -i/e) 4.6.3 "Male" and "female" compounds (-har, -woy). 4.6.4 Nominals of essential nature (-ferey) 4.6.5 Compounds with -jeijey 'lack of 4.6.6 Semi-segmentable and compound kin terms 4.6.7 Verb-noun compounds (-kasine, -noijgu) 4.6.8 Noun-verb compounds with verb modifying noun 4.6.9 Archaic diminutives 4.7 Reduplication of noun and adjective stems

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax 5.1 Overview 5.2 Possessives 5.2.1 Possessor NPs with and without wane 5.2.2 Recursive possession 5.2.3 Possessors as apparent heads of the higher NP 5.2.4 Inalienable possession 5.3 Adjectives 5.3.1 Syntax of simple adjectives 5.3.2 Sequences of adjectives 5.4 Numerals and other quantifiers 5.4.1 Simple numeral phrases 5.4.2 Existential quantification 5.4.3 Universal quantification (kul' all') 5.4.4 Distributive reduplication of numerals 5.4.5 Complementary subsets ("some..., others...") 5.4.6 Generalized quantifiers ('many, much, few')

vii 61 62 63 63 63 65 66 69 71 71 71 72 73 74 74 75 76 77 77 77 79 79 80 80 81 82 82 82 83 83 84 84 85 86 86 87 87 87 88 88 89 89 92 93 94

viii

Contents

5.4.7 Currency and time of day 5.4.8 Quantification over pronouns 5.4.9 Quantification over events 5.4.10 Partitive expressions 5.5 Demonstrative woo 5.6 Definite di 5.7 Plural yo 5.8 Markers of discourse status 5.8.1 Focus (Foe na andSFoc/jga) 5.8.2 Topic (Top bine, Top fa) 5.8.3 Other discourse-functional morphemes 5.8.4 Co-occurrence of discourse-functional morphemes 5.9 Adpositions and case-marking 5.9.1 Unmarked case versus adpositions 5.9.2 Dative se 5.9.3 Possessive wane 5.9.4 Locative ra and kuna 5.9.5 ga On, by, from, out of 5.9.6 doo 'chez, at (the place of)' 5.9.7 Postpositions of spatial orientation ('behind', 'facing', etc.) 5.9.8 Quasi-prepositionsjaa'since' and hal 'until' 5.9.9 Prepositions bilaa 'without', bara or kala 'except' 5.9.10 game 'between, among, amidst' 5.10 Apposition 5.10.1 Pronouns in apposition to NPs 5.10.2 Relative clauses with appositional function 5.11 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs 5.11.1 Conjunction of personal pronouns 5.11.2 Conjunction of two full NPs, or of a pronoun and full NP 5.11.3 Instrumental and comitative phrases 5.11.4 nda in idioms and adverbial phrases 5.11.5 NP disjunction (wa/a Or') 5.11.6 Conjunction of adpositional phrases 5.12 Locational Phrases and Temporal Phrases 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation 6.1 Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases 6.1.1 Verbs, quasi-verbs, and the referentiality of subject NPs 6.1.2 Underived simple intransitives 6.1.3 Underived simple transitives 6.1.4 Ditransitives and other verbs with dative 6.1.5 Verbs with postpositional complements (ga, Locatives) 6.1.6 Verbs with instrumental-comitative complements (nda) 6.1.7 Cognate objects 6.2 Derived voice forms 6.2.1 Zero derivation (simple verbs with variable valency)

94 95 96 97 97 98 99 100 100 101 101 102 103 103 104 104 105 106 106 107 108 108 109 110 110 Ill 112 113 115 116 118 119 121 122 125 125 125 127 128 129 130 132 133 133 133

Contents 6.2.2 Factitive-Causative -ndi 6.2.3 Mediopassive -ndi 6.2.4 Minor uses of -ndi 6.2.5 Suffixation of -nda to verb stem 6.3 Compounds 6.3.1 Noun-verb compounds 6.3.2 Verb-verb compounds 6.3.3 Centripetal -kate 6.4 Verb-stem reduplication

ix 134 135 136 137 138 138 139 140 141

7 VP structure 7.1 Types of predicates 7.1.1 Quasi-verbs ci (equational) and nono (identificational) 7.1.2 Locational quasi-verbs 500, sii 7.1.3 Existential and impersonal quasi-verb bara 7.1.4 Possessive predications 7.1.5 haya foo '(do) anything' and other apparent verbless predicates 7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN) 7.2.1 MAN morphemes and sequences 7.2.2 Perfective and imperfective 7.2.3 Presentative imperfectives (preverbal gaa or goo) 7.2.4 Subjunctive mood 7.2.5 Future fa 7.2.6 Marked Progressive constructions 7.3 Imperatives

143 143 143 148 151 152 153 154 155 156 160 161 162 164 164

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization 8.1 Focus constructions 8.1.1 Nonsubject focus constructions 8.1.2 Subject focus constructions 8.2 Questions and answers 8.2.1 Polar (yes-no) questions and answers 8.2.2 WH-questions 8.2.3 Composite WH-interrogatives ('how?', 'why?', 'when?') 8.2.4 In situ (non-fronted) WH-interrogatives 8.2.5 Questions embedded under matrix verbs ('know', 'ask', etc.) 8.2.6 "whatchamacallit?" 8.2.7 Tag questions 8.3 Relative clause constructions 8.3.1 Relativization of subject NPs 8.3.2 Relativization of direct objects and complements of 'give' 8.3.3 Relativization of NP complements of postpositions 8.3.4 Relativization of NP complements of nda 'with, and' 8.3.5 Relativization of possessor NP 8.3.6 Adverbial relatives without postpositions 8.3.7 Multiple relative clauses (conjoined or recursive)

166 166 166 171 174 174 176 180 183 183 185 185 186 188 191 192 193 195 196 198

χ

Contents 8.3.8 Relativization out of complex syntactic structures 8.3.9 DF morphemes and postpositions operating on the head NP 8.3.10 kaa 'when ..." or 'such that..." (abstract adverbial relatives) 8.4 Topic constructions 8.4.1 Preposed topical constituents, with or without Topic bine 8.4.2 Use of "3F" pronouns 8.4.3 Use of weak Topic marker ta 8.5 Emphatics and similatives 8.5.1 Simple emphatics (daa, jaati(r), huneyno, yaa) 8.5.2 Only' (nin, tan, allaa, koon, daa, kusf) 8.5.3 'Unless' (nda^ a na ciy and 'except' (bara, kala) 8.5.4 'Nobody (nothing) except X' = Only X' 8.5.5 'Also'(moo) 8.5.6 Similative 'like X' (sanda, allaa, taka,cinne) 8.5.7 dee, mee,gaa 8.5.8 baada, wallaahi, laabudda 8.5.9 wala Or' in emphatic sense 'even...' 8.6 Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories 8.6.1 Topic plus another DF morpheme on same constituent 8.6.2 Emphatic plus focus 8.6.3 Topic plus focus 8.6.4 Multiple topics 8.6.5 Relativization and focus 8.6.6 Relativization and topic 8.6.7 Subjunctive mood and focus

199 201 204 206 206 209 211 216 216 220 224 225 229 231 234 235 236 237 237 237 238 239 239 241 241

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics 9.1 Object NPs and other postverbal constituents 9.1.1 Ordering and cliticization of postverbal constituents 9.1.2 Double-object constructions ('give', 'show') 9.2 Adjectival intensifying interjections 9.3 Operators and scope 9.3.1 Types of adverbials 9.3.2 Clause-internal and higher-level (metalinguistic) negation 9.3.3 Negation and quantifiers 9.3.4 Equivalents of negative polarity items 9.3.5 Negation, adverbials ('again', 'first'), and DF morpheme Only' 9.3.6 Quantification over possessed nouns 9.4 Overview of complement clause types 9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses 9.5.1 Conditionals (nda ..., wala ...) 9.5.2 Juxtaposed clauses ('and', 'but', Or', etc.) 9.5.3 Juxtaposed clauses in adverbial function ('while', 'without') 9.5.4 Clausal disjunctions (wala Or, whether', maa 'either') 9.5.5 Adversative conjunctions mere, ammaa, mais 'but' 9.5.6 jaa 'since' and hal 'until, before'

243 243 243 246 249 250 250 254 255 258 259 261 262 263 263 269 271 272 274 276

Contents

χi

9.5.7 'Because'clauses 9.5.8 'That' complements (kaa, kala,kaana) 9.5.9 Bare indicative complements (gar, ciimi, ci, guna, bara) 9.5.10 Right-edge marking in antecedents and background clauses 9.6 Subjunctive complements 9.6.1 Subjunctive complements to matrix-clause verbs 9.6.2 Subjunctive complements of obligational bara 9.6.3 Subjunctive clauses in jussive reported speech 9.6.4 Subjunctive clauses with complementizers (hal, bilaa) 9.6.5 Subjunctive clauses under the scope of a distant negative 9.6.6 Bare subjunctive clauses with no overt trigger 9.6.7 Multiple subjunctive clauses 9.6.8 Further epistemic subjunctive constructions ('maybe') 9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs 9.7.1 Infinitival VPs in event sequences 9.7.2 Inventory of serial verbs 9.7.3 Control verbs 9.7.4 Modal serial verbs 9.7.5 Aspectual serial verbs 9.7.6 Quantifying and negative serial verbs 9.7.7 Motion and time-of-day verbs as serial verbs 9.7.8 Comparative constructions 9.7.9 ka kaa andka koy after VP or noun 9.7.10 (ka) gar... '(to) find...'plus indicative clause

280 281 284 286 289 290 294 295 296 298 299 302 303 304 305 307 308 309 309 313 314 316 320 321

10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech 10.1 Reported speech and logophoric pronouns 10.1.1 Reported speech and thought 10.1.2 Logophorics and deictic shifts in reported speech 10.1.3 Logophorics and recursive reported speech 10.1.4 Pragmatic functions of logophorics and narrative fade-out 10.2 Reflexives and reciprocals 10.2.1 Compound reflexives (bomo 'head') 10.2.2 Simple reflexive pronouns 10.2.3 Reflexive verbs 10.2.4 Syntax of reflexive pronouns 10.2.5 Reciprocals 10.2.6 Syntax of reciprocals 10.3 Generic and indefinite reference 10.3.1 boro 'person' and 2Sg pronouns 10.3.2 Indefinite human a koy di 10.4 Sloppy (partial) coreferentiality 10.4.1 Sloppy coreferentiality in reflexives 10.4.2 Sloppy coreferentiality in logophorics 10.4.3 Sloppy coreference in relative clauses

322 322 322 323 326 328 329 329 331 332 333 341 343 345 345 349 350 350 351 352

xii

Contents

11 Semantic topics 11.1 Spatiotemporal structures 11.1.1 Spatial deictics 11.1.2 Semantics of spatial adpositions 11.1.3 Motion and path structure 11.1.4 Time expressions (nouns and verbs) 11.1.5 jinaa 'first', koyne 'again', jaa 'since', hal 'until' 11.1.6 Temporal uses of spatial and motion expressions 11.2 Weather and ambient condition 11.3 Perception 11.4 Emotion and personality 11.5 Kinship 11.6 Flora-fauna 11.7 Body parts

353 353 353 353 358 361 364 365 366 366 367 368 371 373

Appendix 1 Upriver dialects

375

Appendix 2 Djenn6 Chiini

380

Text

434

References

443

Morpheme Index

445

Subject Index

451

Abbreviations

Absol Abstr Adj, adj adv Ar. Caus Comit cf. D Dat Def Dem dimin DjCh Emph esp. F Fact Foe Fr. Fut G HS Impf Inf Instr Intens intr KCh KS lit. Loc Logo LP Mediop n N Neg NP Ο Partpl PI

Absolute form of adjective Abstractive (verbal noun) adjective adverb (adverbial NP) Arabic Causative Comitative compare Dire (town) Dative Definite demonstrative pronoun 'this, that* Diminutive Djenne" Chiini (Songhay of Djenne") Emphatic especially Full pronoun (in 3SgG and 3P1F) Factitive Focus morpheme French Future Goundam (town) Humburi Senni (Songhay of Hombori) Imperfective aspect Infinitive Instrumental Intensifier (for adjectives and some verbs) intransitive verb Koyra Chiini Koroboro Senni (Songhay of Gao) literally Locative (Postp or PP) Logophoric (pronoun) Locational Phrase Mediopassive noun Niafunko (town) Negative noun phrase Object pronoun (in ISgO, 3SgO, etc.) Participle plural

xiv

Abbreviations Poss Postp PP Q Rdp Recip Refl Rel S SFoc Sg Subju t Tarn. T To Top TP tr VP 1 2 3 3F 3Refl < V * # 0 77

Possessive Postposition postpositional or prepositional phrase question reduplication Reciprocal Reflexive pronoun (in 3Refl) Relative (clause) subject (in ISgS, 2SgS, SFoc, etc. Subject Focus morpheme singular Subjunctive trace (phonological zero, representing extracted NP) Tamashek (language of Tuaregs) Timbuktu Tonka (town) Topic morpheme Temporal Phrase (e.g. time adverb) transitive verb verb phrase first

person pronoun second person pronoun third person pronoun Full third person pronoun simple third person reflexive pronoun derived from root (of Arabic stem) reconstructed ungrammatical zero interrogative or 'whatchamacallit' form

Map

Hass

8 Tarn

Hass Tarn

Tadaksahak Tarn

MALI

language abbreviations Bam = Bambara DjCh = Djenn
broken line = Niger R.

towns/cities and their dominant language(s) 1. Bamako, capital of Mali (Bam) 2. Djenn6 (DjCh; outlying villages Ful, Bam, Bozo) 3. Mopti (Ful, Bam; Bozo nearby) 4. Niafunke" (KCh; Ful nearby) 5. Goundam (KCh; Tarn nearby) 6. Timbuktu (KCh, some Tarn and Hass) 7. Araouan (KCh, Hass) 8. Taoudenni, salt mine (Hass) 9. Gourma Rharous (KS) 10. Bamba (KS, some Tarn and Hass) ll.Gao(KS, some Tarn) 12. Ansongo (KS) 13. Hombori (HS, some Ful) 14. Niamey, capital of Rep. of Niger (Zarma, Hausa)

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Generalities about Songhay Songhay is often described loosely as a "language," but in fact it is a large complex of varieties, some of which are quite clearly distinct languages. Languages of the Songhay family are linguistically dominant in northeastern Mali along the Niger River, and others of the family occupy much of the Republic of Niger ("Kaado" and "Zarma"). Additional varieties are spoken in Bonin, and perhaps still residually in the Dori area of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). Some "nomadic" or "northern" Songhay languages, not yet well studied, are spoken by small beduin groups in far northern Niger, with one offshoot each extending into Mali ('Tadaksahak" near Menaka) and in southwestern Algeria ("Korandje" in the Tabelbala oasis). The major work on the internal genetic classification of Songhay varieties is that of Nicola'i (1981), who puts considerable emphasis on sound changes and phonological typology. My work on Songhay has focused to date on the four main varieties spoken in Mali. The following sets of designations are partially interchangeable. One set consists of transcriptions of the native terms; the second is simply the name (in English or French) of the respective major town; the third is the cardinal-direction system developed by Nicola'i. native term koyra ciini jenne ciini koroboro senn-i humburi senn-i

major city or town Timbuktu Djenne Gao Hombori

NicolaTs term western Songhay (S. occidental) " " eastern Songhay (S. oriental) central Songhay (S. central)

For Gao, koroboro senn-i co-occurs with other variants such as koyra senn-i and koyra senn-e. The nouns ciini and senn-i ~ senn-i (with variant senn-e ~ senn-e) are noncognate, though both mean 'speech, speaking, language', cf. verbs cii (<*ciin) and selaq seien. In the cases of Djenne and Hombori, both of which are (in effect) Songhay enclaves rather than parts of extended Songhay-speaking regions, the first term of the compound is simply the name of the town. Timbuktu and Gao, on the other hand, are merely the largest cities in extended Songhay-speaking regions, and the terms for these varieties are more general: koyra-ciini 'town language' and koroboro-senn-i (contraction of koyra-boro senn-i 'town-person language') distinguish the sedentary Songhays from the nomadic Arabs and Tuaregs. The Songhay are also sometimes called 'river people' (Timbuktu isa-boro), but no related expression for their language is in common use. For the native sense of sonoy, see beginning of §1.2. We will use the informal transcription "Koyra Chiini" to denote the unbroken koyra ciini complex of dialects in the region along and near the Niger River beginning

2

1 Introduction

with Timbuktu. This includes the towns of Dire", Tonka, Goundam, and Niafunke going upriver (west) from Timbuktu. There is a thinly populated northern extension in Araouane, on the caravan route from Timbuktu to Taoudenni. There is a relatively sharp linguistic break between Koyra Chiini and Koroboro Senni (the "Gao" variety) just east of Timbuktu. Koroboro Senni is the traditional language even of Gourma Rharous and Bamba, the first important towns on the Niger River going east from Timbuktu. Most of my Koyra Chiini data are from Timbuktu itself. I have a corpus of some six hours of transcribed recordings, mostly dyadic (interviews, conversations, or narratives with an interactive listener). I have supplemented this data base with elicited material obtained chiefly in the final field sessions (1996-97). I also have some transcribed recordings from Niafunke" and Goundam, which can serve as representatives of the larger complex of "upriver" dialects ("upriver" from the perspective of Timbuktu). I also spent about a week in this area in 1996 to clear up some problems in the analysis of these tapes and to do some follow-up elicitation and ethnobiological vocabulary elicitation and specimen collection. A summary of observable differences between the upriver dialects and the Timbuktu dialect is given in the short Appendix 1. In the much larger Appendix 2, I describe the distinctive and geographically separated variety of Djenno, which I refer to as "Djenne Chiini" (for jenne ciini, literally "Djenn6 language"). Abbreviations for the Malian Songhay languages and varieties used in this grammar are KCh (Koyra Chiini, the present object of study), DjCh (Djenne Chiini), KS (Koroboro Senni of Gao, etc.), and HS (Humburi Senni of Hombori). Names of other Songhay languages are not abbreviated. The wider genetic affiliation of Songhay is controversial. It is one of the few African languages for which Joseph Greenberg (1966) did not make a confident assignment to a large genetic stock, though he suggested Nilo-Saharan as a possible connection. Nicolai (1984, 1990) has suggested a possible Creole origin in which Tamashek (Tuareg) played a major lexifying role, but this has not won wide acceptance. It might be advisable to defer reconsideration of the wider affiliation of the Songhay complex until we have better descriptions of the several varieties within the complex and can thus do serious reconstruction of Proto-Songhay.

1.2 History and geography The KCh term soijoy (= KS sorjoy, HS sorjay) does not ordinarily denote the broad ethnolinguistic group who use the language(s) in question. Rather, it is part of a set of terms for patrilineal clans or castes, each of which was associated with particular occupations, rituals, and customs. In this traditional system, now in the process of being peripheralized or suppressed by the combination of orthodox Islam and of European culture, sorjoy was associated chiefly with the original Songhay-speaking group which founded Gao and Hombori, and lost a crucial battle with an invading Moroccan army in the late Middle Ages which spelled the end of the Songhay Empire and remains the subject of popular legends. Currently, sorjoy in this limited sense is associated with the patronymic meyga (Gallicized as Maiga), and more particularly with those Maiga who continue practicing sorcery and other traditional practices

1.2 History and geography

3

frowned on by Islam. Currently, under the influence of French (still the major administrative and educational language), soqoy is increasingly used in the French sense as a general language name and ethnic label. The descendants of the Moroccan soldiers (many of whom were non-Arab mercenaries) are called anna, and associated with the French patronymic Toure. There is a collective "joking" relationship between the Maiga and the Toure, who call each other cross-cousins. Another traditional caste-like group is the siise (French patronymic Cisse), traditionally associated with Islamic scholarship. The Niger River is the lifeblood of this region, since it picks up the annual rains from its source in Guinea (near the Atlantic) and flows inland (northeastward) through Mali before "buckling" south in the Republic of Niger on its way to Nigeria. Because the river has to fight its way through some rises it is very slow-moving and annually floods any adjacent low-lying areas. These floodplains and seasonal lakes are especially abundant in the region between Mopti and Timbuktu. In addition to the very large Lac Debo in non-Songhay territory between Mopti and Niafunke, there are three important wet-season lakes in the area of Goundam, and several smaller floodplains along the river in the KCh zone. The local economy is based primarily on farming, fishing, and herding. The latter is primarily associated with the non-Songhay-speaking minorities in the area, known in KCh as belle and fulan. The Bella, Tamashek-speaking blacks formerly enslaved to Tuaregs, are the main herding people in the area from Timbuktu to Goundam, tending to specialize in sheep and goats but also sometimes handling cows. The bovine specialists, however, are the Fula (language: Fulfulde), who are especially numerous in the area around Niafunko. Historically, the prototypical fishing people in the area were the Bozo. However, in the KCh area, the Bozo have long since been linguistically and to some extent culturally assimilated by the Songhay. The term sorko now denotes all of the fishing people in the area, both the assimilated ethnic Bozos and those Songhays who have adopted this occupation and life style. It is therefore a kind of caste label rather than an ethnolinguistic label in the usual sense. (In KS and DjCh, for example, sorko can still denote specifically 'Bozo' in the ethnic sense.) Among the other castes of greatest sociocultural interest, both feared and despised by mainstream Songhays, are the griots and the blacksmiths. The local griot castes include the maabe, who have important roles in public rituals and in reciting the genealogies of leading citizens (to flatter them); the sulewule, who specialize in singing and dancing; and the hosso (<*horso), who assist in weddings and arc notorious for their foul language and behavior. The griot castes are generally associated with Fula rather than Songhay ethnicity. The blacksmiths (whose families also do leatherwork) are thought to have black-magical powers; most local blacksmiths are ethnic Tuaregs. The seasonally flooded areas support rice farming, which continues to increase in importance due to a long-term trend toward reduced rainfall and desertification of the land away from the river. Traditional non-submerged crops (millet and sorghum) are grown in fields which rely on direct rainfall, but under current climatic conditions these crops have been disappearing from the Timbuktu area. They are still extensively grown near the upriver towns such as Niafunke, which get somewhat more rainfall. Aside

4

1 Introduction

from lettuce and other vegetables grown in small irrigated fields ("gardens") on the edge of the towns, for sale to westerners and the native bourgeoisie, we may mention that watermelon does well in the zone, and several types of dried watermelon seeds are exported from here to southern Mali. Timbuktu is also an important commercial center for certain products, notably salt and spices. Though the trans-Saharan caravan routes are no longer actively used, there are still two annual two-week-long caravan expeditions from Timbuktu (and Bamba) to the salt mines at Taoudenni, located in the middle of the Sahara near the Algerian border north of Timbuktu. This is the specialty of local Arabs and Tuaregs and is of relatively little direct concern to the Songhay. Timbuktu cuisine is prestigious in northern Mali, especially for its rich spices—some grown locally (e.g. near Dir6), others associated with the Sahara to the north, still others imported from the Maghreb. Timbuktu spices are now available in many other marketplaces in northern Mali and are gradually being accepted into the local cuisines. In the late Middle Ages, the Songhay Empire based in Gao (farther east along the Niger) controlled Timbuktu. It seems likely that KCh developed in the context of the eastward expansion of the Songhay linguistic complex during that period, though it now differs grammatically from KS, especially in constituent order (SVOX vs. SOVX) and morphosyntax. In separate publications I will attempt to reconstruct the historical (socio-)linguistic developments underlying the development of KCh, making use of language-contact and creolization models. The Songhay Empire collapsed at the end of the Middle Ages, due most immediately to the Moroccan invasion. That no comparable successor state emerged to fill the void is explained by the opening up of Portuguese navigation routes along the west coast of Africa, which reduced the significance of overland caravan routes and led to the long-term impoverishment of the region. Despite its important role in history, when I first visited Timbuktu in 1986 it was an unimpressive town of perhaps 20,000 persons staggering under the burdens of a fifteen-year drought, the desertification which had devastated the Arabs and Tuaregs living to the north, and economic isolation due to the city's position on the "wrong" (northwestern) side of the floodplains, cutting it off from the main highway running on the southeastern side from the capital Bamako through Mopti and Gao onward to the Republic of Niger. As a provincial capital, its economy was kept above water largely by the salaries of government officials. To make things worse, from 1990 to 1994, all of northern Mali was impacted by a small-scale military rebellion by Tuaregs and Arabs. This abortive insurrection provoked the numerically dominant Songhays to "cleanse" the towns of Tuaregs and Arabs, forcing many noncombattants to flee to Mauritania or other neighboring countries. By early 1995, with a new democratically elected government in place, peace had been reestablished, the rebels had been integrated into the Malian armed forces, Arab and Tuareg refugees had begun returning, and signs of economic renewal led by new NGO projects were visible. By early 1997, Timbuktu had undergone a major electrification project (streetlights and increased home electricity), tourism was recovering, and a new international airport was being built. In 1986, prior to the rebellion, the population of Timbuktu had these native languages: KCh (about 80%), Hassaniya Arabic (10%), and Tamashek (10%). Tamashek is spoken both by ethnic Tuaregs and Bella. KCh is the lingua franca. There

1.3 Format of grammar

5

are no major Fulfulde-, Bozo-, or Bambara-speaking communities in the immediate vicinity of Timbuktu. Knowledge of Bambara is slowly increasing due to mobility between Timbuktu and the major cities of the south (Bamako, Segou, etc.), but it is not yet a major factor in the region.

1.3 Format of grammar The present grammar of KCh is written in a fairly strict format to facilitate comparison to the appendices and to my forthcoming parallel descriptions of other Songhay languages. The numbering of chapters and sections thereof will be held constant to the extent possible, although this means that in each grammar some subsections are blank (e.g., "tonology" in the present grammar). In Appendix 1 on the "upriver" (Goundarm, Niafunke) varieties, and to a lesser extent in Appendix 2 on DjCh, we disregard areas where their grammars do not differ significantly from that of Timbuktu KCh (perhaps giving an example or two), reserving extended analysis for areas where they differ from Timbuktu. The format of the grammar is not revolutionary, and its general nature can be gleaned from a pass through the table of contents. We begin with a brief overview chapter (2), designed to give readers an idea what a simple Songhay sentence looks like. Fortunately, the language is simple morphologically and readers should be able to pick up its basic sentence structure quickly. A brief chapter on phonology (3) leads to two chapters (4, 5) on nominal constructions, the first focusing on derivational processes (also including information on personal and demonstrative pronouns), the second describing NP inflection and phrasal syntax. Verbs likewise get two chapters (6, 7), one mainly on voice categories expressed by suffixation (or by zero), the other on mood-aspect-negation (MAN) inflection and VP structure. The next chapter (8) turns to "information packaging" issues such as focus, topic, and relativization. These are all of great importance in Songhay discourse, and it turns out that there are important differences among the Songhay varieties in the respective forms and functions. This is followed by a chapter (9) on complex (interclausal) syntax, in which various types of "serial verb" construction play important roles. The final grammatical chapter (10) is on anaphora; the most significant topic here is the use of logophoric and reflexive versus ordinary personal pronouns. The last chapter (11) looks at selected lexical semantic matters, including the lexical division of labor in expressing spatiotemporal concepts, and some ethnosemantic issues such as kinship and emotion terminology. A volume of Texts in Koyra Chiini (Songhay of Timbuktu) is in press with Koppe Verlag, Cologne. It includes texts from Timbuktu, Niafunke (an "upriver" dialect), and Djenne. A set of three Songhay-English-French dictionaries is to be published by rHarmattan, Paris. One of the three is KCh (Timbuktu to Niafunke), and another is for DjCh (the third is KS of Gao).

6

1 Introduction

l .4 Transcriptional conventions KCh is quite simple morphologically and there are few productive phonological rules disguising underlying (lexical) phonological representations. Double slashes // ... // enclose underlying representations (not italicized). In the grammar text, brackets [ ... ] enclose phonetic representations. The ordinary phonemic transcription is italicized without slashes or brackets. We use the hyphen "-" as a morpheme boundary in a fairly restricted set of cases where it seems justified. Examples are verb stems containing a derivational suffix (Fact-Caus or Mediop -ndi), such as dira-ndi 'cause to walk'. It has been difficult to decide whether to use hyphens in noun-noun compounds, noun-adjective combinations, and similar close-knit stem sequences showing various degrees of lexicalization. There is no consistent phonological test for lexicalization of such combinations, and other criteria (frequency, semantic specialization) are gradient rather than categorical. In general, I use hyphens in compounds sparingly (when the combination seems fairly clearly lexicalized), and in combinations involving highfrequency finals such as -ije 'child' and -fiaa 'mother'. However, readers should not put too much stock in these transcriptional decisions. My most idiosyncratic transcriptional decision is to use the subscripted ligature "^" to indicate assimilations across word or morpheme boundaries. This enables us to show the basic forms of the morphemes in question, maintaining the transparency of the morpheme structure, while at the same time at least hinting at the surface pronunciation. In the case of nasal consonants, a ligature indicates point-of-articulation assimilation to a following segment, generally n —> [η] before velar stop. The expected parallel shifty—> [n] before alveolar consonant is moot in Timbuktu KCh, where lexical stem-final η is normally absent, but occurs in upriver KCh dialects which allow stem-final η. (1)

Ligature^ indicating point-of-articulation assimilation of nasal transcription pronunciation gloss hinjca [hirjka] 'be able to'

After a nonnasal consonant, a ligature indicates total assimlation to a following consonant. The common assimilations involving r before another alveolar, y before another alveopalatal, and w before another labial, as shown in (2). (2)

Ligature^ indicating total assimilation of nonnasal sonorant transcription pronunciation gloss har^di [hadii] 'the man' cirowjbii [tfirobn:] 'black bird (=guinea fowl)' ay_^ cindi [atijindi] Ί continued'

For more details on these assimilations, see §3.6. A ligature between two vowels indicates contraction to a single surface long vowel with the quality features of the second input vowel; this is especially common in sentences containing Impf preverbal morpheme ο preceded by a subject NP or

1.4 Transcriptional conventions

7

pronoun. Contraction may also occur in combinations involving a verb followed by ISg object marker ey, or a verb followed by a postpositional phrase beginning with any V-initial pronoun. A few examples are given in (3), below; see §3.7 for a full discussion and more examples. (3)

Ligature^ indicating contraction of vowel sequence to long vowel transcription pronunciation morphemes woy di^o [wojdo:] woman + Def + Impf ijgujo [qgo:] Logo3ReflSg + Impf [rjgo:] SFoc + Impf (or: 3SgF + Impf)

Note that this transcription usefully distinguishes ijgu^ ο from rjga^ o, which have identical surface pronunciations. In the underlying combinations 3Sg Impf a^ ο and 3P1 Impf ^ o, we again get a long vowel but this time the quality of the first vowel prevails, so the outputs (in Timbuktu) are [a:] and [i:], respectively. Note that the regular rule would merge them as #[o:] with unfortunate consequences. I therefore transcribe them a-a and i-i rather than as underlying forms with ligatures. I also choose to use no-o rather than ni^ o for the high-frequency 2Sg Impf combination. In general, my transcription is designed to be user-friendly rather than to be strictly consistent. One important case of the assimilation //yj// to jj is intramorphemic, namely, the form of the noun ije 'child' after a vowel-final morpheme, especially in compounds: //tira-ije// —> tira-jye 'pupil in Koranic school' (lit., 'talisman-child'). Rather than try to make the morphemic composition transparent by showing a morpheme-internal ligature, i.e. as tira-ije, I prefer to just write tira-jjeand put cross-references between -jje and ije in the dictionary. The form -jje is quite frequent and readers will soon become familiar with it. There are also a number of cases where an underlying segment is deleted. For example, 2Sg ni optionally contracts to n in certain positions (before a verb or a postposition), and a number of minor consonantal deletions occur in verbal derivatives with Fact-Caus or Mediop suffix -ndi: dinrndi (pronounced [dindi]) 'be taken (Mediop)' or 'set afire' (Caus); underlying //kam-ndi// — > kam-di 'cause to fall'. Where the deletion involves one of two identical consonants, as in 'be taken', I use the ligature notation, though the dictionary has pointers (e.g. "din-di" See din^ndi). Where the deletion involves nonidentical consonants, as in 'cause to fall', my transcription reflects the deletion. I have chosen to make selective use of square brackets [ ... ] in transcriptions to indicate phrase or clause boundaries that might otherwise be unclear to readers. My use of these boundary devices is designed mainly to help readers navigate through difficult (but interesting) textual passages, with an emphasis on clarifying scope relationships and other semantic as well as syntactic structures. For instance, one example from Chapter 2 is presented as (4).

8 (4)

/ Introduction [[tubaabu di] kaa guna ni] [[white DefJ Rel see 2Sg] 'to (for) the white man who saw you(Sg)'

se Dat

Here the bracketing is intended to show that the final Dative postposition se takes as its complement the entire NP 'the white man who saw you', rather than (just) the 2Sg pronoun. One could imagine a more aggressive use of such brackets, perhaps requiring them in all sentences, but I prefer to make sparing, opportunistic use of this device, both in this grammar and in the published text collection. In the texts volume, emendations (of addition, replacement, or omission) are fairly common. Many emendations of omission involve false starts, though some involve errors which the speaker immediately corrected. In order to make these emendations transparent to readers, the following bracketing and italicization conventions are applied: addition: {har di}; replacement: {har di} with a note describing the emendation; omission: (usually false starts) disregarded in translation.

1.5 Literature review There is no published scientific grammar or dictionary for KCh. The following are the publications known to me that deal with it: a) An anonymous New Testament translation, [Anonymous] 1936, published by the Scottish National Bible Society. There is a copy in the Harvard library. b) Two fairly brief, poor-quality pedagogical works by early French missionaries: Hacquard & Dupuis-Yakouba 1897, Dupuis-Yakouba 1917. c) An article by Robert Nicola'i on the western Songhay dialects (Nicola'i 1978) focusing on their position within the larger Songhay family. Nicola'i was based in Niger for many years but undertook field surveys of the Malian varieties. His article emphasizes comparative phonology. d) Shopen and Konaro (1970) is an article about causatives and passives. e) Zouber (1983), a hard-to-find mimeographed work produced in Niamey, is a text collection from some villages near Dire", in a dialect close to that of Goundam (see Appendix 1). I have made little use of these publications in preparing this grammar.

1.6 Acknowledgements My research on Songhay begin in 1986, when I spent one month in Timbuktu as part of a nine-month Fulbright research fellowship, under its Islamic Civilization program, which took me to four countries. I went to Timbuktu primarily to study Hassaniya Arabic, an extension of my long-standing research in Maghrebi Arabic. I was surprised to find the region attractive and have been going back ever since; as the proverb says,

1.6 Acknowledgements

9

hamni har, na n guna hay kaa no-o baa, ma bun a ra 'the fly said, if you find something you like, you should die in it.' I continued to work mainly on Hassaniya Arabic and secondarily on Songhay varieties during fieldwork periods of two to three months each in 1989 (Gao) and 1990 (Timbuktu), financed in part by the University of Michigan. I then received National Science Foundation grant BNS-9020409, which enabled me to focus my fieldwork on Songhay in two additional two-month stints in Mali in 1991 and 1992. The primary objective was to assess the possibility that KCh was the result of "semi-creolization" of a prior Gao-type Songhay variety during the Medieval Songhay Empire. During the course of the NSF project I did exploratory work on DjCh and HS, in addition to gathering more material from Timbuktu and Gao. It became clear to me that these new data were complicating the rather simple notion of "semi-creolization" that I had proposed as a working hypothesis, and that more depth was needed in the grammatical analysis and vocabulary. In particular, DjCh, though very close to KCh in some ways (sound changes, basic lexicon), departed from it quite significantly in fundamental aspects of syntactic structure and phonemic systems. The upshot was that instead of an expected sharp break between KS (and HS) on the one hand and Western Songhay (KCh and DjCh) on the other, I was finding major phonemic and morphosyntactic isoglosses that seemed to cut across the major genetic boundary, some linking KCh with KS and apparently others linking DjCh with HS. This suggested a more complex historical sociolinguistic model involving continuing contact among neighboring Songhay varieties, rather than a "big bang" original creolization of Western Songhay followed by minor dialectal divergences. The role of other adjoining languages (especially Hassaniya Arabic, Tamashek, Fulfulde, Bozo, and Bambara) would also have to be dealt with. I did another summer of fieldwork in 1993, with travel support from the University of Michigan. Then I received grant RT-21610-94 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, covering summer fieldwork in 1995 and extended fieldwork during a sabbatical year from fall 1996 to summer 1997. The main objective of the NEH project is the preparation of grammar-text-dictionary works covering the four major Songhay varieties of Mali (KCh and DjCh, along with KS and HS). The grammars, dictionaries (with French and English glosses), and text collections for KCh, DjCh, and KS are being prepared simultaneously, while the HS materials will follow a year or so later. I prefer not to disclose the names of my informants, local assistants, and hosts, so I will thank them in other ways. I do, however, wish to publicly thank the linguists and community leaders who have been helpful to me. Prof. Robert Nicola'i of the Universite de Nice helped to arrange my short stay in Nice in 1995 and has made his collection of (mostly untranscribed) early tape recordings available to me. In Mali, I have benefited from extensive collaboration with linguists at DNAFLA in Bamako, especially the "Songhayisants" Yousouf Maiga and Yousouf Haidara. Another Malian colleague is Ibrahima Traore, a professor at the ENSUP in Bamako, who has also been helpful. In Timbuktu, I have worked extensively with an amateur linguist, Aldiouma Amadou dit Diadie, who has compiled his own extensive KCh lexicon. In Djenne, I have many debts to Ibrahima Kone, now a businessman, and Baba Ibrahima Toure, director of the local French-Arabic school.

10

1 Introduction

Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the American and Malian employees of USIS in the American Embassy in Bamako, who have always been extremely helpful to me in connection with research clearances, visas, tape duplication, and other small but vitally important administrative matters. They provided this assistance not only during my Fulbright visit in 1986, when they were expected to, but also in the ensuing years when I had no official embassy status. The American PAO's there generally do two-year stints, and I have been through several of them; I particularly thank the legendary Linda Buggeln, who put me up in her residence for several days one year when I returned from the field with incapacitating boils on my legs. Without the assistance and friendly advice over the years of the permanent Malian employees of USIS—Issa, Kalifa, and especially Gaousou—I would probably have taken my act to some other country.

Chapter 2 Overview

2.1 Brief outline of typical sentence and NP structures For purposes of initial orientation, this section provides examples of typical sentence structures. The basic constituent order is SVO (subject-verb-object), and more precisely the ordering in (5): (5)

subject NP - mood-aspect-negation (MAN) - V - other constituents

Examples of the pattern are in (6-8), with multi-word constituents enclosed in brackets. (6)

(7)

(8)

[bar di} ο guna [woy di] [man Dei] Impf see [woman DefJ 'The man sees the woman there.' a guna ni doodi 3Sg see 2Sg there 'He (She) saw you(Sg) there.' ay na guna [[huu di] kuna] ISgS Neg see [[house DefJ Loc] Ί didn't see anyone in the house.'

doodi there

[boro foo] [person one]

Each of (6-8) begins with a subject NP, which in (7-8) is a personal pronoun. The MAN position is occupied by Impf o in (6), by zero in (7), and by Neg na in (8). Except with equational and locational quasi-verbs, a zero MAN position is interpreted as perfective positive, which is extremely common in past tense narrative. The verb stem, here guna 'see', has no inflectional affixes for either pronominal agreement or MAN categories. The direct object NP follows the verb (though not always immediately), whether it is a pronoun as in (7) or a full NP as in (6,8). Further constituents such as adverbial modifiers generally follow the direct object NP, as with doodi 'there' in (6-7) and the Locative PP in (8). However, when a verb is followed by two or more complements (NPs and PPs), their linear ordering reflects morphological and discourse considerations as well as pure syntax. The maximal internal structure of a NP or PP is schematized in (9). (9)

possessor - noun - adjective - numeral - demonstrative - Definite Plural - DF[discourse-function] - postposition Examples of this structure are (10-12).

12 2 Overview (10)

(11)

(12)

[ay häysi di yo] [ISg dog Def PI] 'to (for) my dogs' [[[ay baaba] wane] [[[ISg father] Poss] 'to (for) my father's dogs' bor bibi hinka person black two 'the two black persons'

se Dat häysi dog

di Def

yo] PI]

se Dat

di Def

In (9), the noun slot is essentially obligatory except that an understood noun may be omitted after a possessive (as in the pattern: 'Which house? Mine, or my father's?'). Possessor, adjective, and numeral are optional. In the defmiteness slot, the choices are Def di and zero. In the plurality slot, the choices are PI yo and zero (usually interpreted as singular). The DF slot may be filled by a topic, emphatic, or similar morpheme. In the final position, there are several nonzero postpositions such as Dative se and Locative kuna. Subject and direct object NPs have zero case, and may be said informally to be in the Nominative. Some adverbial modifiers like nee 'here' can be analysed as zero case forms of (defective) nouns. Personal pronouns can, of course, be used as NPs, but they do not fit neatly into the schema (9). For example, the (third person) logophoric plural pronoun has a discernible (but often phonologically altered) PI ending yo, as in (13). Any pronoun can take a DF morpheme, a postposition, or both (14). (13)

(14)

qgi-yo (pronounced [rjgijo], [rjgije], [nge:], etc.) LogoPl 'they (Logophoric)' ay ta se ISg Topic Dat 'to (for) me'

The more complex sentence structures that we will briefly introduce here are topic and focus constructions, relative clauses, and complement clauses (reported speech, subjunctive, serial verbs). Topic constituents (usually NPs) are usually preposed and set off from the sentence proper by a pause. In this preposed position, they optionally take a Topic morpheme. One common Topic morpheme is bine (also a noun 'heart'), often in contrastive-topic function. A preposed topical NP often corresponds to a pronoun (in any syntactic function or position) in the sentence proper, as in (15). (15)

[[ay baaba] bine], [[ISg father] Topic], 'As for my father, I saw him.'

ay ISgS

guna see

ga 3SgO

However, a preposed topical NP does not require such a "resumptive" pronoun.

2. l Brief outline of typical sentence and NP structures

13

Occasionally a NP with topic marking is treated as part of the sentence proper, namely as its subject NP. In this case, the MAN morphemes and the VP immediately follow the topic-marked subject NP. While topic-marked NPs are generally sentence-external, focalized NPs are clearly part of sentential syntax even though the focused NP (or PP) is always fronted (=extracted). (We use "preposed" or in connection with sentence-external elements such as most topic-marked NPs, "fronted" or "extracted" for sentence-internal movement associated with focalization, WH-interrogatives, and perhaps relativization). In KCh, unlike KS, extraction normally leaves behind a phonologically zero trace (rather than a resumptive pronoun). The focalization system sharply distinguishes subject focus from other focus structures. If the grammatical subject is the focus, the morpheme rjga occurs between subject NP and the remainder of the sentence (16). (16)

ay qga guna ga ISg SFoc see 3SgO Ί [focus] saw him (her).' (= 'It was I [no-one else] who saw ...')

Without the SFoc morpheme, there would be no way to tell that the subject has been focalized, since subjects precede MAN morphemes and VPs. SFoc ijga is phonologically identical with a "Full" (nonclitic) 3Sg pronoun which we label "3SgF." This raises the possibility of construing SFoc .rjga as a kind of subject resumptive pronoun: the subject NP, here ay (ISg), is shifted to the left, out of the subject position into a special focus slot, whereby a type of 3Sg subject pronoun appears in the true subject position. However, this analysis is only one of the possibilities to be explored later, and it is problematic for the upriver dialects. For non-subject focus, the normal KCh construction is to front (extract) the focused constituent, adding Focus morpheme na before the subject NP. This pattern is especially common in WH questions and responses to such questions (17). (17)

maa na no-o taasi? what? Foe 2SgS-Impf seek 'What [focus] are you seeking (=doing here)?'

Foe na should not be confused with Neg na, illustrated in (8), above, which follows (rather than precedes) subject NPs. Foe na is not used with isolated WH interrogatives (in truncated questions): maa 'what?' (not #maa na). Accordingly, there is no clear evidence that na in (17) forms a syntactic constituent with the preceding focused NP. The productive relative-clause construction consists of the head noun followed by Rel kaa and the remainder of the relative clause. As with focalization, KCh differs from KS in that KCh normally has no resumptive pronoun within the relative clause. In some examples in this grammar, to help readers with parsing I use / (for "trace") to indicate the virtual position of the deleted element and will use subscripts like "x" to indicate coreference. (Where the location of the trace is not at issue, trace notation is omitted in examples.) In (18-21) we see a subject relative (18), a direct object relative

14 2 Overview (19), a postpositional relative with the postposition added directly to kaa (20), and an example showing how a postposition modifying the head noun (in the higher clause) is added (if at all) to the end of the entire relativized NP (21). I use the trace notation in (19). There are some tricky issues in analysing even simple subject relatives like (18); should we transcribe the relevant portion as kaa guna ni, as kaa^ a guna ni (with 3Sg subject pronominal contracting with the preceding kaä), or as kaa tx guna ni (with a trace)? Is kaa itself a true relative pronoun (coreferential to the head noun), or merely a relative operator which requires a further pronoun (or trace)? (18)

(19)

(20)

(21)

[tubaabu di] kaa guna ni [white DefJ Rel see 2SgO 'the white man who saw you(Sg)' [tubaabu di] kaa ay guna tx doodi [white DefJ Rel ISgS see tx there 'the white manx whomx I saw tx there' [huu di] kaa kuna ay goro [house DefJ Rel Loc ISgS sit 'the house in which I lived' [[tubaabu di] kaa guna ni] se [[white DefJ Rel see 2Sg] Dat 'to (for) the white man who saw you(Sg)'

One of the chronic difficulties of reading texts in KCh is separating Relative kaa from the common intransitive verb kaa 'come; become'. Moreover, kaa is also used as a non-relative 'that' complementizer with indicative clauses as complements, and as a 'when ...' conjunction. (22) illustrates typical reported speech. (22)

ay baaba har (kaa) ngu^ wii ISg father say (that) LogoSgS Impf kill 'My father^ said (that) hex would kill him(her)y.'

ga 3SgO

The material following the quotative verb har 'say' is attributed to the quoted speaker (here, 'my father'). In such contexts, the logophoric pronoun ngu is used instead of the usual 3Sg pronouns (a, ga) to denote the quoted speaker, in any syntactic position. Therefore an ordinary 3Sg pronoun must denote another third person referent, distinct from the quoted speaker. We use subscripted indexes {x,y, ...} to clarify the relationships in such sentences. The form ngu can also be used in non-reported-speech contexts as a third person reflexive (3Refl), as in (23): (23)

a haabu 3SgS prepare 'He(she) got ready.'

ngu 3ReflSgO

2.2 Distinctive features of Koyra Chiini

15

Subjunctive clauses are marked with the morpheme ma in the MAN position between the subject NP and the verb. The type of modality they express is generally deontic rather than epistemic; more specifically, the modal value is usually hortative, imperative, or desiderative. However, as in some European languages, the subjunctive is largely confined to complement clauses. It is common as the complement of a quotative verb, in which case it is used to report an original imperative, as in (24). (24)

ni bar [ay ma 2SgS say [ISgS Subju 'You(Sg) told me to go.'

koy] go]

Subjunctive clauses are also normal as complements of verbs of desire, notably baa 'want', and have other syntactic-semantic functions. The major remaining complement clause type is a nonfinite VP beginning with Inf[initive] ka, followed immediately by the verb and any further material (object NPs, adverbials), as in (25). (25)

a duu [ka guna ga 3SgS get [Inf see 3SgO 'He (She) proceeded to see her (him) there.'

doodi] there]

Note that ka occurs in the position(s) normally filled by the subject NP and the preverbal MAN morphemes. Such nonfinite VPs are commonly used as complements of certain verbs, generally either "serial verbs" with aspectual value such as duu in (25), or "control verbs," such as wir 'seek (to ...)'. This rather oversimplified sketch of KCh morphosyntax should suffice as an initial orientation.

2.2 Distinctive features of Koyra Chiini KCh and DjCh share many features which distinguish them from the main block of Songhay languages (KS, HS, Zarma, etc.). First, KCh and DjCh (like KS) lack lexical or grammatical tone distinctions of the sort typical of the non-Malian languages (Zarma, Dendi, etc.) and still going strong in HS. Second, KCh and DjCh have merged *z and *j (affricate) as j, so z is no longer part of the phonology except in a few recent loanwords. KCh j may therefore correspond to either KS z orj, hence the homophones in (26). (26)

Correspondences of KCh (and DjCh) affricate j KChDjCh KS iGao) gloss jii jii 'butter' zii 'swim' or 'push'

16 2 Overview Third, KCh and DjCh show S-MAN-V-X constituent order (subject, mood-aspectnegation, verb, other elements including direct object), while KS, HS, and the nonMalian varieties show S-MAN-O-V-X order with the direct object preceding the verb. In Greenbergian terms, Western Songhay is SVO while the other varieties are SOV, though the latter are not verb-final languages in the fashion of Turkish and Japanese. The SOV Songhay varieties also show a Transitive marker between the MAN complex and a direct object NP (if present); there is no trace of this in KCh or DjCh. KCh and DjCh share Def di and PI yo in NPs. (These are also found in the Bamba dialect of KS.) Mainstream KS and most other Songhay languages have different DefSg and DefPl suffixes. DjCh differs from KCh on many counts. DjCh has seven phonemic vowel qualities to five for KCh. DjCh favors in situ relativization and WH-interrogatives, while KCh fronts the relative pronoun and the WH-interrogatives. Because of the many lexical differences between DjCh and KCh, it is necessary to devote separate dictionaries to them. For more details on DjCh grammar, see Appendix 2.

2.3 Internal variation within Koyra Chiini Distinctive features of the upriver dialects are described in Appendix 1. Of particular phonological significance is the retention in upriver dialects of the full original shape of stems like been, which reduce to CVVC, e.g. beer, in Timbuktu KCh (and in DjCh). The most interesting syntactic differences involve the focalization system and the use of simple versus "Full" third person pronouns. For more details on the upriver dialects, see Appendix 1. There are also many lexical isoglosses which distinguish Timbuktu from upriver dialects. In Timbuktu, ham means 'meat' (beef, mutton, goat, etc.), the compound hari-ham ('water-meat') means 'fish', and baSi is a more restricted term meaning 'piece (of meat)'. In the upriver dialects (and DjCh), ham means 'fish' and basi, basi is the general word for 'meat'. Another well-known idiosyncracy is Timbuktu nuune 'fire', versus tow in upriver dialects. In both of these cases, the Timbuktu variant closely matches that of the other major city in northern Mali, Gao.

Chapter 3 Phonology

3.1 Consonants The basic consonants of KCh are shown in (27). (27)

Consonants labial

to)

B f

m

alveolar

palatoalveolar

velar

t

δ

k

d s (ζ) n

j (sj (ζ) n

laryngeal

g (χ) η

r (tap) W

V

h (') Though no instrumental study has been done, the voiceless stops and affricate {p t c k} appear to be aspirated. We now comment in turn on the minor phonemes. p: most stems containing p are loanwords from French or other languages, e.g., piisi 'bundle (of women's garments)' (
18

3 Phonology

Since there are few phonological rules, there is not a great deal of dynamic evidence for grouping the segments into classes. The schema shown in (27) is a conventional one showing the intersection of points of articulation with manner of articulation classes (voiceless stops, etc.). The table aligns affricates c, j with the corresponding stop series. Assimilation rules provide evidence for some groupings, r often assimilates totally to a following {f d s l n}, see §3.6.2. w often assimilates totally to a following {b m f } , andy often assimilates totally to a following {c j n}, see §3.6.3. These processes suggest phonological groupings: alveolars {f d s I n r}; labials {b m f w}; and palatoalveolars {c j n y}.

3.2 Oral vowels The oral vowels are short {/ e a o u} and their long counterparts [ii ee aa oo uu}. The uncommon nasalized vowels are discussed in §3.4.1. The mid vowels {e o ee oo} tend to be fairly closed (high), and rarely reach the level of openness characteristic of the DjCh phonemes ε, ο. Particularly in Timbuktu itself, short a tends to be fronted to phonetic [ae] in some morphemes such as dam 'do', and on occasion I have had some difficulty distinguishing a from e in this local dialect. In most cases where my transcriptions have oscillated, further study has shown that the phoneme is a, and the upriver dialects as well as DjCh usually have a clear a. However, after a palatoalveolar consonant, as in the first syllables of yadda ~ yedda 'consent' and yanaa ~ yenaa ~ fianaa ~ nenaa (dialectally also yinaa) 'precede', I believe that Timbuktu and perhaps some other KCh speakers differ from each other in their phonemic representation (or cannot distinguish the two vowels phonemically). In Timbuktu I also had difficulty distinguishing a from o in several words of the type Cjqgu and C_mbu, the vowel filling the blank often being heard as [o]: joggu 'hundred', noqgu 'place', worjgu 'war' and 'refuse', combu 'glass, bowl', sombu 'lift (child to breast)'. I generally write them as just shown, with o, in texts but give both pronunciations (if attested) in the dictionary. I have heard a consistently in gambu 'door', baqgu 'floodplain' (or 'circumcision'), and hambur 'fear'; I have heard o consistently in fombu 'melon seeds', jombu 'grain residue after pounding', and hoijgu 'believe'. These remarks do not apply to upriver dialects or to DjCh. On the contraction of two short vowels to a long vowel, see §3.7.1-4.

3.3 Diphthongs By "diphthong" we mean the sequence of a vowel nucleus plus a semivowel coda y or w within a syllable, i.e., word-internally before another consonant or word-finally. There is some justification for treating diphthongs as quasi-units, since only certain vowel-semivowel combinations occur. All diphthongs in the language are upgliding (vowel plus semivowel).

3.3 Diphthongs

19

3.3.1 Short-nucleus diphthongs In KCh, the following short-nucleus diphthongs are well-established in the sense that they can occur word-finally in nouns and verbs: {oy ew ey~ay ow~aw}. These diphthongs all involve low or mid-height nuclei. The diphthongs iw and uy, with high nucleus and sharp differentiation of nucleus and coda, are attested but rare, iw occurs in the semi-onomatopoeic titiw 'shatter', and in one variant of ciwsi ~ cipsi 'sacrificial ram' ( ow, see §3.10. There are two types of lexical item which may go against the normal pattern and maintain phonemic oppositions between ey and ay and between ow and aw. These are interjections (particularly intensifiers) and loanwords.

20

3 Phonology

Intensifiers (§9.2) permit [a] as diphthongal nucleus after consonants other than Λ, at least for some speakers. For one speaker I recorded a clear minimal pair: intensifier gay! [gaj] associated with the verb kaan 'be sweet', audibly distinct from gey [gej] 'endure, be a long time' and from gaay [gay] 'restrain'. Another intensifier, tey! [tej], associated with the verb hottu 'be hot (spicy)', shows that the ey diphthong is also possible in interjections for this speaker. However, other speakers applied the same neutralizations to intensifiers as to other vocabulary, and did not distinguish the intensifier for 'be sweet' from the verb gey 'endure*. The ISg pronoun ay calls for comment. As a subject pronoun, before a postposition, as a possessive, in preposed or fronted position, or in isolation, I generally hear [aj]. However, as a postverbal direct-object morpheme it tends toward [ej]. This probably reflects the status of direct-object pronominals as enclitics, with less natural stress than pronouns in other positions. In other words, it appears that [ej] is the "lax" counterpart of [aj]. I will accordingly transcribe the ISg pronoun as ey when it functions as direct-object clitic, and as ay elsewhere. This is an idealization, but aside from its approximation to phonetic reality it also provides useful orthographic differentiation. Examples: ay bine 'as for me', ay kaa Ί came', ay naa 'my mother', ay doo 'at my house (chez moi)', but a kar ey 'she hit me'. Some Timbuktu speakers carefully retain Arabic pronunciations of loanwords such as addawla 'reputation, prestige' and alwayli 'suffering'. The fully assimilated pronunciations are addowla [adrowla] and alweyli [alwejli], and the fact that some speakers do not assimilate them suggests that the prevailing neutralized two-way system is vulnerable to re-splitting. On the other hand, there are other examples where a recently arisen *ay or *awhas been adjusted to the synchronic pattern. Several stems with original final *ab have participated in a lenition of *b to w, the resulting diphthong being heard in most cases as [ow] rather than as [aw], as in algab ~ algow 'hawk sp.' (more examples in §3.10.1). However we choose to analyse the ey~ay diphthong, we should note that it has no tendency to induce palatalization of a preceding velar stop. The basic diphthongal system of {oy ew ey~ay ow~aw} is subject to further reduction when the preceding consonant constituting the onset of the syllable is either w or a palatoalveolar from the set {c j n s z y}. First, consider what happens when the onset and the coda are harmonic, as in the patterns wVw and PVy (P = any palatoalveolar). Only ο is possible in wVw, as in wow 'insult' and wow 'become healed', and only e is possible in PVy, as injey 'spend a long time' and yey 'become cold'. Note that the nucleus in these examples is harmonic with the flanking segments, ο being close to w and e being close to the palatoalveolars. Consider now the disharmonic flanking environments wVP and PVw, where the onset and coda tend to pull the nucleus in opposite directions. Since only y among the palatoalveolars may occur syllable- or word-finally, wVP in practice reduces to wYy. The relevant wYy forms are transcribed woy 'woman' and its homophone woy 'ten', as well as a few bisyllabic stems like woyme '(man's) sister' and woyne 'sun'. The pronunciation is actually intermediate in both cases between [woj] and [wej] and might be better represented as [woej], but since no phonemic distinction seems possible in this environment there is no harm in normalizing the transcription.

3.4 Nasalized vowels and word-final nasal consonants

21

ForPVwwehavejow 'take', oow 'read, study', yow 'guest', and yow 'bull'. In these cases we again find intermediate nuclei, e.g. wavering between [djow] and [d3Ew] and perhaps best represented as [dsepw], but no phonemic distinctions seem possible and we normalize the transcription to ow. Broadly speaking, the (Timbuktu) KCh system of short-nucleus diphthongs is similar to that of KS, and different from that of DjCh and HS, which phonemically distinguish ey from ay and ow from aw.

3.3.2 Long-nucleus diphthongs The long-nucleus diphthongs are aay and, marginally, aaw. They occur stem-finally and occasionally stem-medially. It is probably best to analyse them as simple sequences of aa plus a semivowel, essentially parallel to similar sequences with final sonorant such as aan or aar, in which case there is no special category of long "diphthongs." There are only slight differences between {aay aaw} and {aan aar} in distribution, and in all cases the nuclear aa has its normal articulation. There are several examples of aay. gaay 'restrain', gaayka 'fish eagle', taayla 'bald spot', taaytaay Ostrich', waay 'become aware of. The only possible examples of aaw are a handful of Arabic loans where a wordfinal *b after a long *aa has shifted to w, as in citaab ~ kitaaw (~ kitaw) '(Koranic) tome' (
3.4 Nasalized vowels and word-final nasal consonants 3.4.1 Nasalized vowels There are only a few native Songhay stems in KCh with a surface nasalized vowel that clearly cannot be accounted for phonologically as a vowel-nasal sequence: döö Old times', fn 'blow nose', hää 'inquire', häwhäw '(dog) bark', huhää 'breathe', höö 'nowadays', johö '(dog) bark', saatii 'be solid'. There appears to be no example of #u, and if 'fart' is reconstructed as *fuu it has lost its nasalization in KCh fuu. Four of the clear cases ('blow nose', 'bark' [2 stems], 'breathe') have onomatopoeic attributes, hää 'inquire* might be suspected to be derived from ha 'huh?', but the verb occurs in KS and other Songhay languages as well. Since French has many nasalized vowels, it is not surprising that French loanwords provide further examples: bargo 'metal drum (barrel)', bo 'well, ...', kökur 'competition', kötinü 'continue', kurää 'electricity', läspeer 'slingshot', maqgazai 'warehouse', milyö 'million' (< French barriquaut, ban, concours, continue, courant, lance-pierrefs], magazin, million). The nasalization of bargö is secondary (vis-ä-vis the

22

3 Phonology

French source) and suggests that nasalized vowels have become an indicator of foreignness, like e.g. the a? vowel quality in 'warehouse'. Some other stems of unknown or Bambara origin may also be mentioned: fugää 'metal of tin cans (aluminum alloy)' and reglä 'type of boubou (garment)'. Unlike the "true" nasalized vowels in the stems listed in the first paragraph of this section, those just listed are frequently resolved into an oral vowel plus nasal consonant when immediately followed by a stop, affricate, or liquid, especially within the same phrase. This applies to the stems with word-final nasalized vowel followed by e.g. Def di, hence bargon di 'the metal drum', kuraan di 'the electricity', maqgazaen di 'the warehouse', milyon di 'the million', fugaan di 'the tin', and reglan di 'the boubou'. Before a fricative or semivowel, resolution is not usual: milyo foo One million'. In the "true" nasalized-vowel cases listed at the beginning of this section, resolution does not occur even before stops: höö bow 'a person of today'. Phonetic nasalization is relatively common in vowels or diphthongs followed by fricatives [f s s}. One could argue that in these cases there is a nasal consonant (probably n, or an underspecified nasal) in the coda of the first syllable, and that it is realized in the form of nasalization of the preceding vowel (or diphthong nucleus). Examples are beysa 'bundle of women's robes', cese ~ ceysa 'scar; be jealous', döfo 'steaming pot', häfi 'clay bowl', häysi 'dog', hlsa 'make', kolöfar 'a spice', küfa 'be curious', küsum 'roll up (wad of money)', säfa ~ sowfa 'slap', tefer 'worn-out mat'. The underlying-nasal analysis is supported, at least historically, by the loanword alfisi 'type of devil' (
3.4.2 Word-final nasal consonants Word-final n and m are relatively stable in KCh. Examples of final m include many Arabic loans such as alharam 'bastard', and many native stems such as dam 'put, do' and danam 'blind'. Examples of final n are many Arabic loans like alforon 'bread

3.5 Syllabification

23

oven' and many native stems such as baan 'be light' and ben 'finish'. For a few cases of historical loss or shift of a final nasal, see §3.10, below. Word-final velar nasal ;; is not normally allowed in Timbuktu, except as the surface form of π after assimilation to a following stop (§3.6.1). (Final η occurs sporadically in upriver dialects, Appendix 1.) Comparison of certain verbs with their derivatives suggests that vestiges of a former opposition of final *n and *η are still to be found (28).

(28)

verb a. hin baan jeen kaan b. jen tin, urn kan

gloss be able be soft be old be sweet fail be heavy fall

nominalization hin-ey baan-ey jeen-ey kaan-ey jeney (§4.6.5) tiq-ey, tin-ey (woyne-)kaij-ey

gloss 'wherewithal' 'softness' Old age' 'sweetness' 'lack' 'weight' '(sun-)set'

Most π-final verbs that have an abstractive nominalization keep the alveolar nasal; a few examples are given in (28a). However, the three stems in (28b) have an apparent shift of π to velar η (in one case, optionally). One way to analyse the data is to set up the (28a) cases with underlying n and the (28b) cases with underlying /;, then posit a rule converting word-final η to n. This is historically correct, but such an analysis would be rather opaque synchronically, for the following reasons: the simple verbs are more salient than the nominalizations; there are only the three cases shown in (28b) for the alveolar-velar alternation; and the nominalizations in (28b) seem to show semantic specialization. Accordingly, we will not attempt to formalize a synchronic phonological rule to capture this minor alternation.

3.5 Syllabification 3.5.1 General restrictions on particular consonants All regular native consonants occur word-initially, except that tap r is found initially only in the postposition ra. Examples of each initial consonant can be easily gleaned from the dictionary (where, be it noted, η is alphabetized as though n, and s as though s). Native consonants that do not occur word-finally, excluding intensifiers and other interjections, are h, n, η (in Timbuktu), affricates [c j } , stops {p t d k g}, and sibilants (s s}. There are two apparently native stems (along with some loans) ending in b (see §3.10.1), and a couple of loans ending in f, but these segments are clearly highly marked in final position.

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3 Phonology

3.5.2 Syllabic shapes of pronouns and grammatical morphemes In this section we specify the possible shapes for syllables. We begin with pronouns and grammatical morphemes, proceed to monosyllabic stems, then discuss syllabic possibilities in multisyllabic words. We use the conventions in (29). (29)

Notational conventions C any consonant V short vowel VV long vowel Vy, Vw diphthong R sonorant (liquid, nasal): [I r m η π η] Ν nasal (m n n η] T obstruent: {pbtdcjkgfss}

Pronouns and other normally unstressed grammatical morphemes have short vowels even when not closed by a consonant, the most common shape being CV. A few grammatical morphemes with focal or presentative force (hence salient and stressed) have long vowels. The attested shapes are given in (30). (30)

Syllabic shapes (pronouns and grammatical morphemes) shape example category comments on shapes V a 3SgS pronoun — #W — — occurs in contractions Vy ay ISgS pronoun — #VR

—

#VT #VA

— —

CV CVV #CVy

ga daa —

3SgO pronoun Emphatic

very common shape —

CVR #CVT #CVh NCV NCW

yer — — ggu —

1P1S pronoun

—

LogoSg pronoun — — occurs in contractions

In the case of NCV, which applies to LogoSg ηgu, SFoc rjga, and nda 'and, with', one could argue that the nasal is syllabic, so the forms are really bisyllabic. The long-vowel shapes VV, CVV, and NCW occur in contractions of two shortvowel morphemes: no-o '2Sg Impf from //ni_^o//, and a-a 3Sg Impf from //a^ o//, ο (pronounced [rjgo:]) 'LogoSg Impf.

3.5 Syllabification

25

Since there are a limited number of pronouns and unstressed grammatical morphemes, some of the gaps in (30) are perhaps fortuitous. However, the disallowance of final obstruents (" T ") and of are very general restrictions on wordfinal segments.

3.5.3 Syllabic shapes of monosyllabic stems In (31) we summarize the data for monosyllabic words consisting of a stem (usually a noun or verb). The preferred shapes are CVV and CVC (final segment not an obstruent).

(31)

Syllabic shapes shape #V #W

(monosyllabic stems) example gloss — — — —

comments

#Vw #VR #VT

#cv CVV Cvv CVy CVw CVR CVT CWy CVVR CVVT #CW/j NCVR NCVVR

— baa hää

hew kar dob

'want' 'inquire' 'work' 'air' 'hit' 'attach'

gaay daar piik

restrain — 'spread out' — 'spades (card suit)' rare (loans only)

ncam, ncom njeerjeer

'mouse' 'antelope'

9oy

— — — — — b only, rare

rare rare

Again, we might consider the forms beginning with NC to be bisyllabic. Monosyllables ending in an obstruent are quite rare. Fricatives [f s s} are exemplified only by a few loanwords like def 'scholastic exam' (
26

3 Phonology

3.5.4 Syllabic shapes of nonmonosyllabic stems and words Bisyllabic (and longer) stems show somewhat similar patterns. However, they allow a few more possibilities, especially if we lump word-initial, -medial, and -final positions together. There are several reasons for this: a) initial syllables may begin with a vowel (Arabic loans, also some native forms beginning with /); b) the set of longer noun stems includes a few which permit an initial nasal (probably the vestige of an old noun-class prefix) followed by another consonant, as in ndontor- dontor 'scorpion', qgorfu 'vine sp.', and nnori ~ nori 'ant sp.'; c) bisyllabic and longer stems include a large number of loans from Arabic, French, and other languages whose syllabic preferences differ from those seen in native Songhay vocabulary; d) geminate stops, nasal-stop clusters, and other word-medial consonant clusters increase the possibilities for syllabic codas of nonfmal syllables. Basic Schemas for allowed and disallowed syllable shapes in nonmonosyllabic stems are given in (32). (32)

Syllabic shapes (nonmonosyllabic stems) example shape gloss comments abada V 'not at all' initial W aadama-jje 'human being' initial, rare Vy aywa 'well, ...' initial, rare — #Vw VR alkifta 'meat ball' initial VT addibaara 'trick' initial (geminate clusters) — #Vh cv bomo, borjo 'head' initial, medial, final initial, medial, final cvv azzakaa 'donation' Cvv initial, medial, final Hnhää 'breathe' 'good' initial, medial, final CVy boyro CVw ciwsi 'sacrificial ram' initial, medial, final CVR bolbol 'pouch' initial, medial, final rare (loans only) CVT kupkup 'machete' arrahma 'God's grace' nonfinal, rare (loans only) CVh CWy gaayka 'fish eagle' rare unstable (VV often shortened) 'understand' CVVC fahaam bisseyf rare (loans only) CVyC 'at the least' CVRT waxyart 'nice person' rare (loans only) NCV derey-ndi initial or with suffix -ndi 'lose' NCVV ndaamakolooti 'chameleon' initial #NCVy — #NCVw — 'vine sp.' initial NCVR rjgorfu mbedde 'avenue' initial (geminate clusters) NCVT #NCVh —

3.5 Syllabification

27

Medial nasal-stop clusters, as in bundu 'stick', are syllabified for present purposes as bun-du. If we segment the syllables as bu-ndu, with the nasal part of the following syllable, we would need to recognize a greater number of NC-initial types.

3.5.5 Final long vowels in nonmonosyllabic stems Final aa is relatively common, occurring in some apparently native Songhay forms like suubaa 'select', and haqkaa 'stone oven', as well as in many Arabic loans like azzakaa 'donation' and maraa 'gather'. Other long vowels are rare word-finally in nonmonosyllables; we can cite didii 'roll up', loloo 'alley', moroo 'excrement (pellets)', luuluu 'immerse in water', and tootoo 'rice chaff, plus a few loans like fumoo 'charcoal burner'. There are also a modest number of quasi-demonstrative forms in final oo resulting from contraction of demonstrative pronoun *woo, see §3.7.5.

3.5.6 Nonfinal long vowels in nonmonosyllabic stems Phonemic long vowels in stem-internal closed syllables arc fairly uncommon but do occur. They are subject to phonetic shortening pressures, but in a number of stems this shortening is not complete, so the phonemic length remains valid. See the fuller discussion in (§3.7.9).

3.5.7 Allowed and disallowed medial consonant sequences While syllable-final T is largely confined to cases involving medial geminate clusters, as in fadda 'palm-leaf sack', we can cite an occasional case (usually unstable) involving nonidentical obstruents: assabdu ~ assowdu 'Saturday', cipsi ~ ciwsi 'sacrificial ram' (both
28 3 Phonology hanna 'stay up at night', hamma 'eldest (sibling)', bafina 'male slave', koqqo 'female slave'. I have no clear example of geminate semivowels, unless we transcribe alkuuwa 'power' (
3.6 Consonantal assimilations and deletions

29

The initial clusters mentioned in this section are not entirely stable. Some of the nouns in question also have variants without the initial nasal, nda 'with, and' has a variant pronunciation na, and Logo/3ReflSg ijgu has a similar variant qu.

3.6 Consonantal assimilations and deletions On the use of the ligature ^ to show the underlying morphemic spellings while hinting at the surface assimilation, see §1.4.

3.6.1 Nasal point-of-articulation assimilation π tends to assimilate across a word or morpheme boundary to a following noncoronal stop [p b k g}. This assimilation is most common within tightly knit phrases, viz., when a stem-final n is followed by an unstressed (enclitic-like) grammatical morpheme (e.g. object pronominal or postposition). Because the small set of relevant grammatical morphemes includes several beginning in a velar stop, but none beginning with a labial stop, in practice nasal-assimilation generally involves velarization of π to η before [k g}. Examples are ay din^ ga Ί picked it up' and neegen^ga On a toilet', pronounced [ajdirjga] and [jieigerjga]. The verb hin 'be able (to ...)' is regularly followed by ka and VP, as in ay hin^ ka duu ga Ί can get it', and is therefore heard as ending in a velar nasal (the alveolar is clear in Abstractive nominalization hin-ey 'wealth'). Cases of π assimilating to a labial are less common, generally involve a phrase boundary, and seem (impressionistically) to show less reliable assimilation: ay din bundu foo Ί picked up a stick' ([ajdimbundufo:]). Theoretically, cases involving an alveolar or palatoalveolar should also be transcribed with a ligature, as in ay din^ tuuri di Ί picked up the tree' and ay din caaku foo Ί picked up a sack', but the "assimilation" here is vacuous and we omit the ligature. The cluster mn is stable in KCh (unlike DjCh): hamni 'fly; flour', and several other examples.

3.6.2 Liquid assimilation Tap r tends strongly to assimilate totally to a following alveolar {r d s n}. The result is a surface geminate, except in triple clusters where the r is deleted (one could argue that this is really assimilation, followed by geminate contraction). For historical evidence of intramorphemic sound changes *rf —> if, etc., see §3.10. Examples of the synchronic rule applying at word-internal morpheme boundaries, and across word boundaries, are given in (33). The regular transcription represents the underlying form.

30 (33)

3 Phonology Examples of r assimilating to following alveolar transcription pronunciation gloss beer-ndi [bemdi] 'magnify' a gar^ni [aganii] 'he (she) found you(Sg)' njeeijdi [ndseidii] 'the antelope' et!a <we> ytTjta u l yer^si bey [jesiibej] 'we don't know'

There are two cases involving syncope (§3.7.1) where underlying limit surfaces as nn within a word. The (adjectival) verbs horon 'be bitter' and koron 'be hot' take the Adj suffix -o to form adjectives honn-o and konn-o. The Abstr nominal konn-ey 'heat' shows the same processes. The other liquid, 1, does not reliably assimilate to a following alveolar obstruent (t d s] at boundaries. There may be a tendency toward low-level assimilation before n, but this is not systematic. 1 does, however, regularly assimilate to following tap r to avoid an unpronounceable sequence. The most common combination here is kul 'all' plus Locative ra, as in huu di yo kul^ ra 'in all the houses', pronounced [...kuna].

3.6.3 Semivowel assimilation y tends strongly to assimilate to a following palatoalveolar (c j n}. The most common cases involve ISg ay followed by a stem beginning in such a consonant. The parallel assimilation involving w applies before a labial {p b m f], a combination which is attested but uncommon in the absence of a high-frequency pronoun or grammatical morpheme ending in w. Examples are given in (34), where again the regular transcription shows the underlying form. (34)

y and w assimilate to following homorganic consonants transcription pronunciation gloss a.y ay_cindi [at:Jindi] Ί remain' ayjur [ad^ur] Ί ran' ay_naa [anraj] 'my mother' woy^cindi-foo [wotijindifo:] 'eleven' ("ten-remainder-one") b. w cirow-^bii [tjirobri:] 'guinea fowl' ("bird-black") haw^mee [hamie:] 'Muslim fast' ("tie-mouth")

Again we use ligatures to hint at the assimilation while preserving transparent morphemic spellings. In the case of hammee, the old compound structure may be synchronically opaque.

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening

31

3.6.4 Palatalization of velars Most cases of *k —> c and *g —> j before front vowel have resulted in respelling of the lexical representations and are not synchronic rules (§3.10.5). In the cases of 3P1 object marker gi ~ ji, 3P1F ηgi-yo~nji-yo, and Logo/3Refl variant rjgi-yo ~ nji-yo, it is possible that some native speakers have underlying velar stops and allow synchronic palatalization to apply. 3.6.5 Geminate consonant simplification Geminate consonant clusters are simplified only when part of triple clusters. Such clusters arise at morpheme boundaries in cases like ben^ndi 'cause to finish', pronounced [bendi]. The suffix in such combinations may be Fact-Caus or Mediop -ndi, or Participle -nie. The slightly irregular [ad&e] from //ay ije// 'my child', via intermediate //ay-yje// or //aj-jje//, may also require such a simplification. Cf. also hajje 'whatchamacallit?', arguably still synchronically derivable from //hay-ije//. On the irregular phonology of ije as compound final, see §3.8.3.

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening 3.7.1 Contractions involving Imperfective ο The only obligatory contractions of two short vowels into a surface long vowel occur within the cluster of morphemes that precede a verb. The culprit is Impf o (the older form go is preserved in some contexts). This ο combines with a preceding V-final morpheme (usually a subject pronoun, or a subject NP ending in Def di or PI yd) to produce a contracted surface long vowel, as shown in (35). For ISgS Impf yee see §3.8, below. (35)

Vowel-vowel contractions with Impf o ("^" indicates contraction) transcription pronunciation morphemes a. woy di^o [wojdoi] 'the woman' + Impf woy di yojo [wojdijo:] 'the women' + Impf nijo [no:] 2SgS + Impf qgujo [rjgo:] LogoSgS + Impf qgajo [rjgo:] SFoc + Impf b. underlying 11*011 [a:] 3SgS + Impf //To// [ii] 3P1S + Impf c. //kaa_^ oil [ka:] Rel + (3SgS +) Impf

In (35b-c) we get progressive assimilation, unlike the dominant regressive type in (35a). In (35b), note that the aberrant progressive type saves the important distinction

32

3 Phonology

between 3Sg and 3P1 subject in imperfective clauses. In the rest of the grammar and in texts we transcribe the (35b) combinations as a-a and i-i. The contraction in (35c) applies only to subject relatives. A (weak) case can be made that a 3SgS pronoun a is part of the sequence, hence //kaa^ a_^ o//, but the bulk of the evidence points toward a simpler underlying sequence //kaa_^ o// (Rel + Impf), see §8.3.1. If so,//kaa^ o//—> [kai] (35c) is similar to //a^ o// —>[a:] (35b). In any event, the output [kaj] for //kaa^ (a_^) o// is indistinguishable from that of simple kaa, the effect being that imperfective (with //o//) and the unmarked perfective aspect are phonetically indistinguishable in subject relatives; in texts we transcribe both as simple kaa with no attempt to indicate whether Impf is present. In nonsubject relatives with 3Sg subject, we get a structurally different sequence kaa a-a, which if contracted is transcribed kaa^a-a with all morphemes shown. The progressive assimilations in (35b-c) apply to the Timbuktu dialect and apparently to upriver Goundam. Djenne has different treatments of //a_^ o//, //i_^ o//, and //kaa_^ (a^ ) o//, while upriver Niafunkd has different treatments of //a_^ o// and //kaa_^ (a) o//. See Appendixes 1 and 2 (sections §3.7.1 and §8.3.1). (35a), where the quality of the second input vowel prevails, is the productive pattern, and is compatible with the further data on contractions in the following sections. An approximation to the productive contraction rule can be given as (36). (36)

VV-Contraction (simplified) V,(:) + V2 -> V2:

That is, two vowels may combine to form a surface long vowel with the quality features of the second input vowel. The second input vowel is almost always short, since no grammatical morphemes and very few stems begin with a long vowel. The first vowel may be long or short, though as we will see in §3.7.3 the application of the rule is restricted when the first vowel is long. The rule is essentially obligatory when V2 is Impf o except in the 3SgS, 3P1S, and Rel combinations in (35b-c).

3.7.2 Contractions involving object and dative pronouns The following pronominal forms beginning in short vowels occur in postverbal position: ISgO ey, ISg postpositions (other than dative) such as ay ga On me', and all simple third person postposition combinations, including Dative a se (3Sg) and i se (3P1). When any such V-initial pronominal is preceded by a verb ending in a vowel, or by a pronominal direct-object clitic like 3SgO ga and 3P1O gi, contraction is possible. The combinations involving 3Sg a and 3P1 i show frequent (though not obligatory) contraction in such cases, and follow the normal VV-Contraction pattern (36), above. Consider the examples in (37).

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening (37) a. b. c.. d.

underlying ay^cerbu ga^a se ayjcerbu gi^a se ay^cerbu ga^i se ayjcerbu gH se

pronunciation [at:Jerbuga:se] " " [at:Jerbugi:se] " "

33

gloss Ί showed it to him (her).' Ί showed them to him (her).' Ί showed it to them.' Ί showed them to them.'

Note that applying the regressive assimilations of the normal VV-Contraction rule preserves the opposition between 3Sg and 3P1 before postpositions like dative se, but obliterates the distinction between 3SgO ga and 3P1O gi when they precede such PPs. Careful (uncontracted) pronunciations are also permitted. The surface mergers shown in (37) are another good reason for using the ligature notation (left column) in ordinary transcriptions, since it makes the underlying morphemic combinations more transparent while suggesting the surface pronunciation. Contraction in combinations involving ISg ey ~ ay is somewhat messier. For the limited contraction of CVV stems with following 1 Sg morpheme, see the following section. When a verb stem of more than one syllable ending in υ is followed by ISg ey, I have heard the output as [ej] or [oj]: tuuru^ ey [tuirej] 'reply to me', batu^ ey [batej] or [batoj] 'wait for me', cerbu^ ey [tferbsj] 'show me'. The data are not fully consistent, and subtle factors such as the presence of a labial consonant before the contracted VV sequence may be at work. See also the discussion of -ey Abstractive nominals (§3.7.6).

3.7.3 Contractions involving CVV stems The contraction rule (36) described in §3.7 applies only in a limited way to combinations of a CVV verb and a following V-initial pronominal. If the two vowels are homorganic (e.g. aa plus a), contraction is always possible but may be a low-level phonetic process, so we focus here on nonhomorganic combinations. Both tightness of phrasing and vowel qualities are relevant factors in licensing contraction. The most systematic contractions occur with noo 'give' followed by either ISgO ey or a third person dative PP (3Sg a se, 3P1 / se). Examples in (38). (38) a. b. c.

underlying ay noo^a se X ay noq^i se X noojey ga

pronunciation [ajna:se Χ] [ajnhse Χ] [nejga]

gloss Ί gave X to him (her).' Ί gave X to him (her).' 'Give it to me!'

Contraction is common in (38a-b), but the PPs a se and / se can be separately pronounced. With noo ey [nej] the contraction is surprisingly regular, and we could take it as a special, lexicalized fusion of the verb and the pronominal clitic. This is consistent with the syntax, since 'give' can occur in an unusual double-object construction, exemplified by (38c), with two direct-object clitics (§9.1.2). We might imagine an alternative transcription like n-ey ga, though we will in fact use the ligature transcription shown in (38c). A further indication of fusion is that [nej] from

34

3 Phonology

noojey has a short diphthongal nucleus, while the regular VV-Contraction rule would give a long vowel. In KCh, the basic quotative verb 'say' is bar rather than nee as in neighboring KS. Contraction of noo 'give' in cases like (38a-b) therefore poses no threat of confusion between 'give' and 'say'. Another very common case of contraction is 500 'be' (§7.1.2) before a third person PP. Some of these are high-frequency combinations: goo^ a ra 'be in it' (can be used partitively as well as spatially), goo^ i se 'be for them'. On the other hand, when the correponding negative s;7 'not be* (§7.1.2) combines with a nonhomorganic vowel in a similar combination, the input ii is at least partially retained: si£ a ra 'not be in it' is normally heard as [sijara], [sjaira], or the like. Other CVV morphemes that commonly precede V-initial pronominals are Rel kaa (§8.3),yaa 'since ...' (§9.5.6), and clause-initial cases of Emph dee (often in the sense '... , only then ...', §8.5.7). Contraction seems regular with dee. With kaa and jaa, contraction with nonhomorganic following vowels can occur, but it seems much less common than with their KS counterparts. With a following 3P1S i, we regularly get deej [di:], but contracted pronunciations kaa^ i [ki:] andjaa^ i [dsii] are sporadic. From the data given so far, one infers that tight syntactic phrasing is a factor favoring contraction, but also that mid-height VV (ee, oo) and to some extent aa are the favored targets for contraction with a following vowel. The claim that phrasing is a factor is borne out by contrasting noo 'give* in (38) with foo 'greet'. We have noted [nej] as the output of noo plus a ISgO morpheme (38c), but foo^ ey with the same ISgO morpheme, if contracted at all, is heard as something like [foij], whose syllabic nucleus remains long and preserves at least some rounding. The claim that vowelheight is a factor is supported by the rarity of full contraction of verbs like duu 'get, obtain' and hü 'lend' which readily co-occur with pronominal PPs. CVV nouns have little opportunity to contract, since the morphemes which may follow them within the same phrase (NP or PP) are consonant-initial. In moo-jje 'shelled rice', the usual shift of ije 'child' to -jje as compound final after nonhigh vowel (§3.8.3) pre-empts contraction.

3.7.4 Contractions of vowels over an intervening semivowel The sequences iyi and uwu are not contracted in measured speech: ije keyna di yiskan 'the child was quiet', cerbu wuraa X se 'show some gold to X'. Since these sequences are the optimal ones for contraction, it is clear that contraction is not a regular phonological process. However, the nearly homorganic sequences //eye// and //owo// are optionally contracted at word boundaries when certain grammatical morphemes are involved. The vowels belong by definition to different morphemes, but the semivowel may belong to either the morpheme on the left (39a) or that on the right (39b).

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening (39)

35

Occasional VV contractions over a deleted intervening semivowel underlying contracted gloss a. i ciiney^ey [itjimeij] 'they gossiped about me' bukow^ o kani [bukoikani] 'a corpse was lying down' b. i neere^yer^se [ine:re:s:e] 'they sold to me' i donto^wor [idontoir] 'they sentyou(Pl)' a nee^yer^ se [ane:s:e] 'he(she) said to us'

Type (39a) is rare since the only native morphemes beginning in e or ο are ISgO ey and Impf o. The Impf morpheme rarely follows a word (i.e., a subject NP) ending in ow, and when it does it optionally takes the allomorph go. In ciiney^ ey, the double underlying ey diphthong approaches tongue-twister difficulty and haplology may be involved. Type (39b) is largely confined to combinations involving 1P1 yer and 2P1 wor, e.g. as postverbal object. The preceding vowel may be long or short, yer sometimes also contracts with a preceding aa or oo if the phrasing is fairly tight: goo^ yer^ doo [ged:o:] 'be at our place'. On frozen contractions involving original demonstrative *woo, see §3.7.5. The plural forms of certain bisyllabic pronouns constitute a special case. See §4.1 for a general treatment of personal pronouns. Of interest here are the forms Logo/3ReflPl rjgu-yo - qgi-yoand 3P1F1 qgi-yo. These can be analysed as consisting of Logo/3ReflSg rjgu or 3SgF rjga plus PI yo, but these high-frequency combinations are rather frozen and are vulnerable to contractions. Leaving aside the ηg onset, which can be reduced to η or palatalized (before /) to nj, I hear the remainder variously as uyo, iyo, as uya, iya (or uye, iye) with loss of rounding in the final vowel, or as contracted ee.

3.7.5 Contractions involving demonstrative *woo In combinations like boro woo 'this person', Demonstrative woo usually undergoes no special contraction with the stem. However, in allegro speech contractions sometimes occur, woo being treated as though it were oo and contracting with a preceding vowel to give [o:], as in ni wane kamba futu^ woo 'your bad hand', pronounced [... futo:]. The ligature^ before woo is the transcriptional indicator of this. Such optional contractions are typical of woo after multisyllabic stems or long NPs. There are a few cases where this contraction has become lexicalized as an adverbial noun. See §4.2.2 for an inventory. Two examples are given here in (40). (40)

Frozen contractions involving demonstrative * woo simple noun gloss "demonstrative" form mise manner misoo ~ musoo jaari day jaaroo

gloss 'thus, like this' 'today'

In the case of mise, the "demonstrative" form often shifts the i to u; this is favored by the combination of the labial m and the rounded vowel in the following syllable, but it is not phonologically regular and suggests lexical separation.

36 3 Phonology 3.7.6 Phonology of Abstractive nominalizer -ey Many verbs have an abstractive nominalization ending in -ey or -oy. We take the basic form of the suffix as -ey. Examples are in (41); for a fuller list see §4.3.1.

(41)

Abstractive nominalizations simple verb gloss a. baan 'be light' 'be able' b. hin 'marry' c. hiiji toone 'accuse' 'fail' d. mor/go waafaku 'agree' e. sendu 'be difficult' futu 'be bad' f. koo 'be dry' yey 'be cold'

Abstr form baan-ey hin-ey hiij-ey toon-ey moqg-oy waafak-oy send-ey fut-ey koog-ey, koog-oy yeen-ey

gloss 'softness' 'wherewithal' 'marriage' '(verbal) attack' 'inability' 'agreement' 'difficulty' 'evil, anger' 'dryness' 'coldness'

When the simple verb ends in a consonant, as in (41a-b), the Abstr suffix is -ey. The irregular cases in (4If) can also be described as having -ey added to a special Cfinal presuffixal stem allomorph. In (41c-e), the simple stem ends in a vowel. If we continue to recognize -ey as the basic form of the Abstr suffix, we need to specify how the two vowels contract. Though we have no good example involving stem-final a, the data in (41c) suggest that unrounded stem-final vowels are dropped before -ey. The data in (41d-e) suggest that when the stem-final vowel is rounded [o u}, either this vowel drops as before to leave -ey, as in send-ey and fut-ey, or the rounded vowel combines in some way with the suffixal //-ey// to give surface -oy. This -oy can be derived phonologically in either of two ways. First, we could analyse the ο as the result of transferring the rounding feature from {u o} to //e// before the stem-final vowel is dropped. Alternatively, we could argue that the //e// of the suffix is simply deleted (in the relevant forms) after a rounded vowel, and then that stem-final {u 0} merge as o as nucleus of a diphthong (see §3.3.1 for the absence of u as diphthong nucleus). In any event, these Abstr forms show a certain amount of semantic and phonological irregularity. In (41c-d), the result of the VV contractions is not a long vowel, as in the more productive VV contractions (§3.7.1-2). I will therefore resist the temptation to formulate a synchronic phonological rule to handle the vocalism of the Abstr ending. Except in those portions of this grammar where the morpheme boundaries are topically relevant, I will generally write the Abstr derivatives without hyphenation. Dictionary entries will make cross-references between simple verbs and Abstr derivatives.

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening

37

3.7.7 Syncope There is no productive syncope rule, by which a word-medial short V flanked by single consonants is deleted, as in CVCVCV becoming CVCCV. Intransitive verbs of adjectival quality typically have a special Adjective form ending in -o (§4.4.2) when the stem is used as a noun or noun modifier. These verbs additionally have an Abstractive derivative in -ey, as do other types of verbs (§4.3.1). The phonological relationship between the simple verb of adjectival quality, and its form preceding -o and -ey, may involve minor, lexically specific irregularities. In only two cases (42), a CVCVC verb stem with identical vowels undergoes syncope to CVCC- before the V-initial suffixes. (42)

Syncope in derivatives of verbs of adjectival quality simple verb gloss adjective abstractive koron 'be hot' konn-o konn-ey horon 'be bitter' honn-o honn-ey

Note that //rn// assimilates to nn (§3.6.2). The old *rn cluster in the syncopated derivatives is sporadically preserved in outlying dialects.

3.7.8 Deletion of word-initial vowels (apheresis) Except for French loans and a few grammatical morphemes such as personal pronouns, words do not normally begin with vowels. The two chief exceptions are Arabic loans beginning in a, and certain nouns and adjectives beginning in /'. Many of the Arabic loans probably entered KCh from other African languages (cf. §3.10.8), which probably accounts for the variation in their form. Arabic has a definite prefix al-, which undergoes a special assimilation to a following coronal consonant (affricate j is treated in Classical Arabic as noncoronal, but in most modern Maghrebi dialects as coronal). As with Arabic loans into European languages (algebra, algorithm), Arabic nouns borrowed into KCh often include the old definite prefix, though the prefix is no longer segmentable and no longer marks defmiteness. This gives rise to the KCh surface patterns in (43), where T is a coronal consonant and K is a noncoronal (velar, labial) consonant: (43)

Four onset types of nouns borrowed from Arabic a. alKV... , as in albacir 'miser'; b. a/V... after loss of glottal stop or pharyngeal, as in alaahidu 'promise'; c. IV... , as in (b), with further elision of the initial *a, as in ladab 'polite person'; d. aTTV... , as in adduhaa 'mid-morning'. The Arabic sources here are al-baxii!, al-Taahid(u) (or other form of the root , al-'adab, and ad-duhaa.

38

3 Phonology

A preceding possessive pronoun, whether ending in a consonant or vowel, can induce truncation of the initial a in types (43a-b,d). An example of (43b) is alakal 'thought' in yer^lakal Our thought'. In (43a) and (43d), a C-fmal pronominal (1P1 yer or 2P1 wor) should produce a triple consonant cluster, but this is generally reduced, r normally assimilates to a following I (§3.6.2), and a geminate like U before another consonant is degeminated (§3.6.5), so Our mason (albannaY is realized as [jelbania], transcribed yer^ Ibanna. This takes care of (43a). In the case of (43d), the geminate noncoronal consonant ("TT") can be degeminated: assamaa 'minaret', yer samaa Our minaret'. From alcilla 'mosquito net' I recorded a 2Sg possessor form as phonetic [nt/ilia] 'your mosquito net'. One could suggest a derivation from //n Icilla//, though the progressive assimilation of //nl// to nn (ultimately surface [n]) is abnormal. Since a stem-variant ncilla is common in neighboring KS (Gao dialect), I am dubious about a pure phonological derivation for the KCh 2Sg form; we may simply have a lexically specific allomorph alternation reflecting dialect mixing. Since KCh speakers evidently have some difficulty with these possessed forms of Arabic nouns, it is not surprising that elicitation often results in the phonologically unproblematic full (postpositional) possessive construction of the type [yer wanej alakal Our thought', pronouncing the possessed noun separately or contracting the two vowels to give phonetic [... wanailakal]. This is especially true with 3Sg possessors, which could otherwise be inaudible after VV-Contraction before a-initial stems. (Another option is to use qga instead of a.) Moreover, there is a considerable amount of subdialectal variation in the forms of these nouns. Even in the absence of pronominal possessors, we find some fluctuation between types (43b) and (43c) as in alakal ~ lakal, the shorter variant preserving only the */ from Arabic Definite *al-. We also find fluctuation between type (43a) with al... or type (43d) with aT... and a truncated variant with the al or aT stripped off. Such variants are subject to lexical specialization. For example, alakal is still fairly common as a noun meaning 'mind, intelligence', but lakal is regular in some idioms, as in yee-ndi lakal 'pay attention' and X si mey lakal 'X lacks intelligence (=is stupid).' In the case of type (43d) anniya 'wish, intention, plan', the stripped-down variant niya is used chiefly as a verb 'intend (to ...)'. Among other stems with variant forms we may mention addibaara ~ dibaara 'strategem' and assabab ~ assabow ~ sabab 'cause', the details being given in the dictionary. There are no native stems beginning in [e o u} or any long vowel, but there are a few nouns beginning in /': ije 'child', isa 'river', ibaay 'wish' and ibere 'enemy', ije has special characteristics and we treat it separately (§3.8.3). In general, the other three /-initial stems do not undergo initial-vowel dropping in connection with possessors: ay ibere 'my enemy', yer isa Our river', ni^ ibaay 'your wish'. I have occasionally heard a reduced form -here for possesed ibere 'enemy' but it does not seem to be standard and it was rejected in direct elicitation. Similar comments apply to adjectives with Absolute prefix i- in nominal use, like i-kaan-o 'sweet one', possessed yer i-kaan-o Our sweet one', occasionally yer kaan-o. As with a-initial stems, use of overt Possessive wane is common before /-initial stems.

3.7 Vocalic contraction, deletion, shortening, and lengthening

39

3.7.9 Shortening of long vowels Shortening of long vowels is difficult to formalize as a rule. It is best thought of as a gradient phonetic process rather than as an abstract phonological rule, though in some contexts (see below) the shortening is relatively systematic. The only long vowels that are completely safe from shortening tendencies are those which occur in non-word-final open syllables: faaba 'help', yeesi 'last year', ciina 'be small', yoobu 'marketplace', and duule 'cloud*. The syllabification is faa— ba, etc., the initial syllable being heavy CW, not superheavy CVVC. Word-final long vowels in nonmonosyllabic words are fully shortened except when followed without pause by another morpheme within the same phrase. This is the most systematic case of shortening, and most previous works on KCh have failed to recognize stem-final long vowels. For noun stems, the simplest way to test for final vowel-length is to add Def di. In isolation or phrase-finally, I heard [ad:uji:a] 'world' and [alaida] 'custom' with final short vowel, but adding di gives addunnaa di (note the final long vowel) versus alaada di, leading to the lexical representations addufiaa and alaada. The majority of nonmonosyllabic nouns with final long vowel have aa, though there are a few cases of other vowels, as in loloo 'alley' and didii 'roll up'. Many but not all of the nouns with final aa are Arabic loans. In texts, I generally transcribe the stems in their lexical form even though they are subject in some positions to surface shortening. For nonmonosyllabic verbs, the simplest way to test for final vowel length is to add a pronominal clitic beginning with a consonant. While the great majority of Vfinal verbs have short vowels, a few have long vowels: ay didii ga Ί rolled it up', yer maraagi 'we assembled them', ni luuluu ga 'you immersed it'. Phrase-finally or in isolation the long vowel is phonetically shortened, though in texts we write the long vowel consistently: yer maraa (phonetic [jer mara]) 'we assembled (ourselves)'. Monosyllabic stems of the type CVV are normally heard with the long vowel loud and clear. However, phonetic shortening of CVV to CV is common in certain high-frequency grammatical morphemes which occur toward the end of clauses or major phrases. This comment applies particularly to the following: demonstrative woo 'this, that', postposition doo 'at (the place of)', and discourse-functional morphemes yaa (Emphatic), dee (Emphatic), moo 'also', and mee (Emphatic). Existential verbs sii 'not be' and goo 'be' are also subject to some degree of shortening when the stress is on a following locational expression (compare the related MAN morphemes, ImpfNeg si and Impf o - go, which are always short). When naa 'mother' is used as cpd. final (§4.6.2), it is often heard as short [-pa] unless followed by a morpheme like Def di. On the other hand, true short-V morphemes like 3SgO ga and Loc postposition ra do not have long-vowel variants. In closed syllables within words, regardless of position, long vowels are subject to phonetic shortening tendencies but remain phonemically distinct from true short vowels. We first consider monosyllabic CVVC stems. Examples are several verbs of adjectival quality such as kaan 'be sweet; be sharp', most of which have an Adj form CWC-o where the long vowel is easy to hear, as in kaan-o 'sweet; sharp' (see §4.4.1-2 for a list of such stems). There are also a few CVVC action verbs like jeer 'lift', feer Open', faar 'touch', and koom 'chew', but their vowel length can be

40

3 Phonology

difficult to hear unless they are immediately followed by a V-initial morpheme like ISgO ey or 3Sg Dat a se. Among the nouns we have jeer 'gazelle' and maar 'leopard' along with a few others. I know of no native CVVC stems with long high vowel {uu /'/'}. See §3.10.7 for apparent examples of complete shortening of long high vowels in such stems. Many of the CVVC stems reflect *CVVCV with a final high vowel that has been dropped in Timbuktu (and in DjCh). The upriver KCh dialects generally preserve the fuller form, as do KS and HS. We now consider nonmonosyllabic stems with a superheavy syllable. This syllable may be word-final (e.g. CV—CVVC) or nonfinal (e.g. ...CVVC—CV), using the dash to mark syllable boundaries. The first type is exemplified by a handful of stems such as the verb fahaam 'understand'. In stems of this type, the vowel is not consistently long and my raw transcriptions vary between long and short vowels. For each such stem, there may be subdialects where the length has been entirely lost. However, fahaam and a few other stems present surface length with sufficient frequency to distinguish them phonemically from short CVCVC stems for my informants. Moreover, fahaam is sometimes pronounced [fa'ham] with short but distinctly stressed second vowel; such stress is not regular for short CVCVC stems. In those cases where a CV—CVVC stem can co-occur with a V-initial derivational suffix, the length becomes unmistakeable: fahaam-ey 'understanding'. In summary, vowel length in the stem shape CV—CVVC is rare but still survives in a few forms. The type ...CVVC—CV with word-medial superheavy syllable occurs in a few unsegmentable stems such as faraandi 'quarter (of town)', gaayka 'fish eagle', and taayla 'bald spot', along with the reduplicative taaytaay Ostrich' consisting of two superheavy syllables. However, most of the medial superheavy syllables occur in morphological derivatives of (CV)CVVC stems, especially those in -ndi (Mediop or Fact-Caus). The superheavy syllables are subject to phonetic shortening pressures, but the shortening is often partial (gradient). Contrast, for example, beer^ndi 'make big, honor' (from beer 'be big') with ben-ndi. The former is heard as [be(:)ndi] with variable surface vowel length, while the latter is always heard as [bendi] with a short vowel. In cases like maraa-nte 'assembled', participle of maraa 'assemble', where the superheavy syllable is noninitial, the underlying long vowel may show up as a stressed phonetic short vowel [ma'rante].

3.7.10 Lengthening of morpheme-initial vowel after CVC syllable Consider the forms in (44a-c). (44)

a.

b.

ay har [a se]... ISgS say [3Sg Dat] ... Ί said to her ...' ay dam [i se]... ISg put [3P1 Dat]... Ί did (put) for them...'

3.8 Minor phonological alternations c.

41

dabur-ije fishing line-child 'fishhook'

What these have in common is a sequence of a stem ending in a CVC syllable and a suffixal or (enclitic) pronominal morpheme beginning in VCV... (i.e., beginning with a vowel in an open syllable). In such cases, the morpheme-initial vowel is often phonetically lengthened. Impressionistically, it appears that the lengthening may not be phonemic (i.e., the lengthened vowel may have shorter duration than a true long vowel in the same position). I therefore do not indicate the lengthening in ordinary transcriptions.

3.8 Minor phonological alternations 3.8.1 Forms of the ISg pronoun The ISg pronoun has the basic forms ay (subject, postpositional object) and ey (direct object). The diphthongs ay and ey are positional variants (§3.3.1), so there is no true phonemic distinction between these two variants. There are three irregular combinations, summarized in (45), along with the KS counterparts for comparative purposes. (45)

Irregular ISg combinations irreg. form regular-expected a. ye ay ma b. yene ay se c. yee #ay o

label ISgSSubju ISgDat ISgSImpf

KS cognate(s) ya yane, yana, yene ay ga

In (45c), the "regular-expected" form does not occur, but ay go with a different variant of the Impf morpheme is attested (though rare). In (45a), the "regular-expected" form is a little more common than the irregular form. In (45b), the "regular-expected" form occurs (obligatorily) in fronted, focused position, while yene is obligatory in postverbal (clitic) position. Low-level phonetic variants [ene] and [erne] also occur in narrow transcriptions. It seems hopeless to account for the irregular forms by synchronic phonological rules. The forms ye (45a) and yene (45b) have exact cognates in KS (and other Songhay languages), yee in (45c) is a KCh innovation (not shared by DjCh). Despite its recent vintage, yee would be difficult to derive from //ay o// by any reasonable phonological rules. However, there is one parallel to the unrounding and fronting of *o to e after y, namely, the frequent pronunciation of PI yo as [je] before postpositions (§3.8.5). It seems apparent from (45) that there is a ISg allomorph roughly of the form ye which occurs in the combinations shown, yee in (45c) could be interpreted as //ye o//, with the same (irregular) progressive assimilation found in two other pronoun

42

3 Phonology

plus Impf combinations, 3SgSImpf a-a and SPlSImpf /-;(§3.7.1). Both ye (45a) and yene (45b) have parallel irregular 2Sg forms, 2SgSSubju ma and 2SgDat mana ~ mane (following section). There is no irregularity in the combination of ISgS ay with Neg na, hence ay na koy Ί did not go.' (This combination is irregular in neighboring KS.)

3.8.2 Forms of the 2Sg pronoun The basic 2Sg pronoun form is ni. It occurs invariably in this shape as postverbal direct object clitic, in isolation (e.g. as preposed topic), or in fronted focused position. It optionally reduces to n as subject marker and in postpositional phrases. Examples in (46). (46)

Forms of 2Sg ni transcription a. nda n(i) koy if 2SgS go b. ay too n(i) doo ISgS arrive 2Sg chez c. ay guna ni ISgS see 2SgO

translation 'if you(Sg) went'

2Sg function subject

Ί arrived at your(Sg) place.' with Postp Ί saw you(Sg).'

direct object

Aside from this minor contraction, there are two clearly irregular combinations, shown in (47). Both are parallel to corresponding ISg forms (preceding section). (47)

Irregular 2Sg combinations irreg. form regular-expected a. ma ni ma (rare) b. mana ~ mane ni se c. ma na #ni na

label 2SgSSubju 2SgDat 2Sg + Neg

KS cognate ma mane mana

A synchronic phonological analysis of these forms would be very dubious, but we can discern at least a historical pattern. In (47b), mana is the common pronunciation. Comparing it to ISgDat yene, we might segment off -ne~ -na as a specialized Dat morpheme occurring only in these two combinations. This would leave ma- as an irregular 2Sg allomorph parallel to ISg ye-. A similar 2SgS morpheme shows up in the (perfective) negative (47c). In this light, ma in (47a) is structurally ambiguous. If we simply compare ma (47a) to the very rare "regular-expected" form //ni ma//, which is attested in (554) in §9.6.2, below, we would incline to derive ma by a truncation rule deleting the 2Sg morpheme ni before Subju ma. However, in view of (47b-c), we might alternatively derive ma in (47a) from an underlying //ma ma// with homophonous 2SgS and Subju morphemes, either by haplology or by deletion of the Subju morpheme; note that ISgSSubju ye (45a) does not contain Subju ma.

3.8 Minor phonological alternations

43

As with the ISg counterpart, the "regular-expected" 2Sg dative form ni se is required in fronted (focused) position, while the "irregular" form is standard in postverbal enclitic function.

3.8.3 Forms of -ije 'child' as compound final ije 'child' is very common as a compound final in various senses (§4.6.2). Moreover, in the kinship sense 'child' (=son or daughter) it is commonly possessed. Its phonological behavior departs in some respects from that of other nouns with initial i (§3.7.8). In both compound and possessed constructions, -ije combines with preceding ι or u by the regular VV-Contraction rule (36) in (§3.7.1) to give a long it. Pronominal examples are ni^ije (phonetic [niidje]) 'your child' and qgu^ ije ([rjgndje]) 'his or her (LogoSg) child'. Compound examples are waggu-^ije ([warjgiidse]) 'warrior' and fufu-to;iduje([fufutondi:d5e]) 'grinding stone'. As compound final, after vowels other than {;' u}, 'child' takes the form -jje, the most likely derivation being //-ije// —> //-yje// (desyllabification, not a regular rule) —> -jje (semivowel assimilation, §3.6.3). Examples are maafe-jje 'cumin' (maafe 'sauce'), toggotoqgo-jje 'arrow' (toijgotoqgo 'bow'), baana-jje 'insect sp. that emerges after rains' (baana 'rain').The desyllabification (after another vowel) is idiosyncratic but phonetically fairly natural. Semivowel assimilation, here //yj// to [d;J], is ordinarily a cross-morpheme rule (§3.6.3). However, it is a productive, low-level process and there is no reason why it should not apply in the one instance where its conditions are met morpheme-internally. The diphthong ow is unconnected before -ije, as in kalkow-ije 'key'. The diphthong ey likewise does not routinely contract with -ije, hence daarey-ije 'jujube fruit' and ferey-ije 'brick piece'. There are a few slightly irregular compounds. From kobe 'finger' we get either kobo-jje [kobodje] or kobe-eje [kobe:d$e] 'finger'. The expected pronunciation #[kobed$e] does not occur. Since kobe is uncommon as an uncompounded stem, the line of derivation is not very clear synchronically and the "compounds" are clearly lexicalized. If we did take kobe as the starting point, kobo-jje shows (irregular) progressive vocalic assimilation, but is otherwise regular, kobe-eje is of interest as a possible archaism, perhaps preserving an older type of contraction for the //ei// of //kobe-ije//. Another frozen irregularity is hajje 'trivial thing; whatchamacallit', which is probably an old -ije compound involving haya 'thing' (cf. hay allomorph in relative hay kaa ... 'the thing that...'). When ije is a possessed noun, after vowels other than {/' u} the situation is little more complex. For //ay ije// 'my child' the usual pronunciation is [ad$e], which we transcribe as ay^Jje. Note that this form, unlike the compounds ('jujube fruit', 'piece of brick') just mentioned, is based on the variant -jje even though the preceding possessor ends in a diphthong. For 'his or her child' I generally heard [a idje], tending phonetically toward [ajdje]. Note that this is still audibly distinct from 'my child'.

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3 Phonology

3.8.4 Possessive wane before Definite di The regular Possessive morpheme is the postposition wane (§5.2), which follows the NP or pronoun denoting the possessor. It is ordinarily followed by a head noun denoting the possessed entity, and in this full combination the postposition takes its bisyllabic form, as in [bar di wane] huu di 'the house [of the man]'. However, the noun denoting the possessed entity may be omitted. In this event, wane is always directly followed by Def di. In this combination, wane shortens to wan to give the surface sequence ... wan di. Example: [har di wan] 0 di 'the man's 0' (='the one [of the man]').

3.8.5 Plural yo before postpositions and other particles The nominal PI morpheme is pronounced yo in isolation or in other phrase-final position. It is also yo when immediately followed by the quantifier kul 'all', as in boro di yo kul 'all the people'. However, in some other combinations the yo is usually unrounded to ye ~ ya. (It is difficult to distinguish a from e after y in unstressed grammatical morphemes.) This unrounding is normal before Dat and spatial postpositions se, ra, kuna, and doo. Examples: boro di ye ra 'in the people', boro di ye se 'for the people' (dative). Note that the quality of the postposition vowel seems to play no role here; the process is best seen as a relaxation of the secondary labial articulation, influenced both by the preceding palatoalveolar y and by the lack of phonetic stress in these positions. It appears that phrase-final (and especially prepausal) position is too "exposed" to permit this relaxation. The unrounding can also occur when the plural noun is followed without pause by another grammatical morpheme such as Rel kaa and SFoc nga. Thus boro di ya kaa ... 'the people who ...', boro di ya nga kar ga 'it was the people [focus] who hit him.' A similar unrounding is very common in the 3P1F pronoun rjgi-yo and the (sometimes homophonous) Logo/3ReflPl pronoun ngu-yo~ ngi-yo (see §4.1.4). The rounded vowel is heard phrase-finally, as in the logophoric example i har [ay kar ngi-yo] 'theyxy said that [I hit themxy].' Such phrase-final position is possible when the pronoun in question is a simple direct object, or when it occurs in isolation. In all other uses (subject, focused NP, dative or other postpositional object, possessor) the pronoun is immediately followed by other material. In this situation, at least in Timbuktu KCh, the -yo tends strongly to be pronounced [ja] (or [je], the two being hard to discriminate in rapid speech). A possessor example is ngi-ya harme di 'their (LogoPl or 3ReflPl) brother'.

3.8.6 Verb-stem changes before derivational suffix -ndi The valency-changing suffix -ndi is added to an intransitive to add an argument NP (factitive and causative functions), or is added to a transitive to suppress an argument

3.8 Minor phonological alternations

45

NP (mediopassive function), see §6.2.2-4. In the great majority of cases, the phonology is regular. Stem-final r usually assimilates to the following alveolar and the geminate is then reduced before another consonant, as in jur 'run, flow' —> Caus jur-ndi (usually pronounced [d^undi]) 'expel, force out' (§3.6.1). Stem-final m combines with the suffix-initial n to give surface m (occasionally n), and stem-final n creates geminate //nn// which is reduced to n since it is followed by another consonant: dam 'do,'put' —> Mediop dam-di'be put', ben 'finish, come to an end' —> Caus ben^ndi [bendi] 'stop, bring to an end'. There are only a few irregular stem changes before -ndi in KCh, shown in (48). (48) a. b.

c.

stem jumbu kani kaan doon maan baan gaabi

gloss 'go down* 'lie down' 'be sweet' 'be lightweight' 'be near" 'be soft' 'force [n.]'

derivative jum-di kan-ndi

kaana-ndi doona-ndi maana-ndi baana-ndi gaaba-ndi

gloss 'lower' 'lay down' 'sweeten' 'lighten' 'bring near' 'soften' 'try hard'

function Caus Caus Fact Fact Fact Fact denominal

In (48a) the derivative shows irregular truncation of the second stem syllable. (Cognates of jumbu in other Songhay languages likewise have irregular causatives.) In (48b) we get vestiges of older trisyllabic stem shapes which are still regular in KS, for example, where the suffix has the form -andi. In the KCh vestiges (48b), one could argue whether the extra a is part of the stem, part of the suffix, or an intercalated linker. Alongside kaana-ndi and maana-ndi we also get synchronically regular variants kaan-ndi (not very common) and maan-ndi (common). One factor in the preservation of the older shapes in the three cases in (48b) may be avoidance of homonymy with kan-ndi (48a), doo-ndi 'bring, present, take down (to river)', and baa-ndi 'prefer'. (48c) is an isolated denominal derivation, perhaps opaque to native speakers.

3.8.7 Shortened forms of "light" nouns before Rel kaa Certain common, semantically "light" noun stems have shortened forms in certain high-frequency combinations with following elements (49). For usage ('place', 'day') see §8.3.6. (49)

full form gloss narjgu - nongu 'place' boro 'person' haya 'thing' handi ~ nan 'day'

simple Rel nan^ kaa bor kaa hay kaa ban kaa

Def Rel naqgu di kaa boro di kaa hay(a) di kaa handi di kaa

universal Rel nanjiul kaa bor(o) kul kaa hay(a) kul kaa nan kul kaa

The details are subtly different for each of these. Comparison of the full form with the simple Rel (used as indefinite relative: 'a place where ...', 'a person who ...')

46

3 Phonology

clearly shows that the latter is shortened, by losing the final V of CVCV or the final CV of CVCCV, at least in the first three cases. The shortening is also common for 'person' and 'thing', and perhaps categorical for 'place' and 'day', in the universal relative construction where kul 'all' (='any') precedes kaa, as in bor(o) kul kaa ... 'anyone who ...'. In the case of haya 'thing', but not the other three, shortening is fairly common in the Def Rel form with Def di, as in hay(a) di kaa ... 'the thing that j

For nangu ~ noggu 'place', the vocalic variation does not apply to the shortened form, which is always heard as [narj] (with velar nasal due to the following k). For haya 'thing', the reduced form hay is homophonous with another noun, hay 'price, cost, fee' (and with three other homophones less likely to cause confusion). The stem handi ~ ban shows the long-short alternation even in nonrelative contexts. We get handi before Def di in handi di 'the day', but han in the indefinite form han foo One day, a day', (han is not used with other numerals, which take another noun jirbi to express duration expressed in days.) This distribution accounts naturally for the relative forms in (49), with Def Rel handi di kaa versus simple Rel han_kaa and quantified han^kul. The shortening seen for all four stems before kul kaa does not apply before kul 'all' in the absence of Rel kaa, hence nongu kul 'every place'. Likewise, although haya often reduces to hay in definite relative hay(a) di kaa, it does not reduce in the simple definite form, which is always haya di 'the thing' (contrast hay di 'the price'). In other words, except for handi ~ han, presence of Rel kaa is a necessary condition for the shortening to occur.

3.8.8 Forms of unmarked and marked third person pronouns The unmarked third person pronouns are 3Sg a and 3P1 /', with allomorphs ga and gi ~ ji as enclitics (postverbal direct object, complement of preposition nda 'with'). In addition, there are some "marked" third person pronouns which begin in ng..., sometimes reduced in allegro speech to η.... In the singular, there are two clearly distinct marked forms. The first is qgu, which has two closely related functions, both involving coindexation with an antecedent: (third person) reflexive (§10.2.2) and logophoric (§10.1.1-4). We label this "Logo/3ReflSg" in isolation, and in texts and examples either "LogoSg" or "SReflSg" depending on its function. The second marked pronoun is nga, which we label "3SgF' ("F' for "Full"), which replaces 3Sg a in certain morphosyntactic positions informally designated as "exposed" (§8.4.2). For all speakers, the plural of 3SgF nga is 3P1F ngi-yo with an irregular shift of a to i, presumably favored originally by the palatal semivowel. The plural of Logo/3ReflSg ngu is, depending on the speaker, either ngu-yo or ngi-yo, the latter being somewhat more common in my data (again, one assumes that the semivowel has had an assimilatory effect). As a consequence, many speakers do not distinguish 3P1F from Logo/3ReflPl. 3P1F and Logo/3ReflPl forms beginning in ngi- have further variants in nji-, where the i-vowel has induced palatalization of the preceding stop. Compare simple 3PlOgi~ji.

3.8 Minor phonological alternations

47

Like nominal PI yo, the -yo of 3P1F qgi-yo and of Logo/3ReflPl qgu-yo~ qgi-yo often loses its vocalic rounding feature except in prepausal position, resulting in ...-ye ~ -ya. For example, with Dat postposition se we usually hear qgi-ye se. In allegro speech, qgi-ye can appear as qgee or njee (see end of §3.7.4). In proclitic position, the -yo ending can be dropped in allegro speech. This is most common in DF forms of 3P1F qgi-yo, such as qgi ta 'as for them', which would otherwise usually appear as qgi-ye ta. Note that the i-vowel of qgi can only be interpreted as plural, versus 3SgF qga and Logo/3ReflSg qgu. I have not heard Logo/3ReflPl variant qgu-yo reduced to ggu, which would confuse this plural category with its singular counterpart. Preserving the Sg-Pl distinction in spite of truncation may have been a factor favoring the spread of the qgi-yo variant of Logo/3ReflPl qgu-yo, if indeed the latter form is the more archaic one. Combining all of the sources of phonetic variation, the surface forms of the "marked" third person pronouns are as given in (50). (50)

Forms of marked third person a. 3SgF b. Logo/3ReflSg c. 3P1F

"

d.

Logo/3ReflPl

"

pronouns qga,qa qgu,qu qgi-yo, qgi-ye, qgi-ya qgee nji-yo, nji-ye, nji-ya qi-yo, qi-ye, qi-ya njee qi-yo, qi-ye, qi-ya nji qgi-yo, qgi-ye, qgi-ya qgee qgi nji-yo, nji-ye, nji-ya qi-yo, qi-ye, qi-ya njee qgu-yo,qgu-ye,qgu-ya qu-yo, qu-ye, qu-ya

We normally transcribe the plural forms as single words, e.g. qgi-yo. One could argue, however, that two-word transcriptions like qgi yo are structurally appropriate, even though the two components seem to interact phonologically in ways that do not apply to combinations of noun stems plus PI yo. There is one possible piece of direct evidence for the two-word representation, viz., the (uncommon) elicited sequence qgi woo yo 'they (there)', with demonstrative woo apparently inserted between the two parts of qgi yo (§5.5). However, qgi woo yo is structurally parallel to yer woo yo 'we here' with 1P1 pronoun yer, and the fact that we get qgi (not qga or qgu) in qgi woo yo suggests that this phrase might better be analysed as a contraction of //rjgi-yo woo yo// with two instances of the PI morpheme.

48

3 Phonology

3SgF qga and Logo/3Refl qgu are normally indistinguishable as subject markers before Impf o, since VV-Contraction (§3.7.1) applies, giving [rjgo:] in both cases. In our practical transcription we maintain the underlying distinction, using the ligature to indicate that contraction occurs: qga^ ο versus ggu^ o. In transcribing texts, we must use judgement in deciding which transcription is valid in each instance, and readers have the right to second-guess our judgements. The morphosyntactic environments which allow unmarked "3" pronouns, and those which require a shift to "3F' (Full) pronouns, are given and exemplified in §8.4.2. In general, unmarked "3" pronouns are used when they are not directly modified (by a following Top, Emph, Foe, or other DF morpheme, by demonstrative woo, or any adjective or quantifier), and when they function as arguments of a following element or phrase (subject, postpositional complement, possessor). These can be described informally as "proclitic" positions. The variant "3" pronouns, 3SgO ga and 3P1O gi ~ ji, are used in direct object function (immediately following a verb), and as complements of the preposition nda 'with, and' (including right conjunct position in "X and Y"). These can be thought of informally as "enclitic" positions. By contrast, the "exposed" positions requiring the shift from "3" to "3F' forms are those where the pronoun is a phrasal head followed by a modifier or DF morpheme, or occurs in isolation. Typical examples of 3SgF gga are qga bine 'as for 3Sg' and the left conjunct in ηga nda gi ("3SgF and 3ΡΓ). 3Sg a would be ungrammatical in these positions: #a bine, #a nda gi. The sequence a bine is grammatical in a different sense 'his heart'. In possessor function, "3F' pronouns can be used instead of 3Sg a or 3P1 i. This option is especially common when the following noun stem begins with a vowel, which could trigger VV-Contraction and therefore cause the 3Sg or 3P1 morpheme to disappear. Thus instead of tila^albarka 'its spiritual power' we normally get either ijga^ albarka with 3SgF pronoun, or a wane^ albarka with overt possessive postposition. However, "3F' pronouns are also sporadically used instead of 3Sg or 3P1 in possessor function even before C-initial stems.

3.9 Prosodies 3.9.1 Tonology There are no lexical or grammatical tones in KCh or DjCh (except for a few marginal Bambara loanwords in the latter). In other Songhay languages of Mali, KS lacks tonal distinctions, HS still has a full-fledged tonal system with complex grammatical functions, and Tadaksahak has a simple tonal accent system.

3.9.2 Stress, incorporation (tight compounding), and cliticization Stress is nonphonemic, with neither lexical nor grammatical significance, in the analysis and transcription used here. In a few cases, an unusual phonetic stress

3.10 Historical phonological notes

49

placement may be a surface indicator of vowel length in a position (before a consonant cluster) where duration is an unreliable surface cue; see §3.7.9. As in many languages, multisyllabic words tend to have reduced phonetic stress (intensity, pitch, vocalic duration, etc.) on final syllables, especially CV syllables. Even stem-final CVV syllables in nonmonosyllabic words tend to be heard as unstressed short-voweled phonetic [CV] when prepausal or at the end of syntactic phrases, so the length of final vowels is best determined by adding a grammatical formative, e.g. Def di in the case of nouns. The lack of intrinsic stress on final syllables allows speakers to use final syllables to express higher-level intonational patterns (e.g. rising pitch marking interrogation or a desire to keep the floor). Many grammatical morphemes, though transcribed as separate words, are regularly unstressed and tend to pattern as proclitics or enclitics to nouns, verbs, and other lexical stems. We do not emphasize this issue here since the phonological consequences are usually nonexistent or subtle. For that matter, there are no completely reliable phonetic indices of affixation or incorporation (tight compounding, §4.6), as opposed to word sequencing, and our decisions about which morpheme sequences to recognize as single-word compounds and which to separate transcriptionally are based largely on semantic lexicalization and morphosyntactic patterning. The best case for cliticization as a formal feature of the grammar involves postverbal pronominal objects and pronominal PPs. These elements normally immediately follow the verb, preceding other postverbal constituents that involve full (noun-headed) NPs (§9.1.1). The dative forms of two pronouns, ISg and 2Sg, also show special forms in this postverbal position, as opposed to the regular forms they have in fronted (focalized, preverbal) position (§3.8.1-2).

3.10 Historical phonological notes 3.10.1 Word-final *b Word-final b is rare, and several cases of older word-final *b appear to have shifted to w, or at least have developed a variant with w. In the word-final sequence *...ab, the shift of *b to w entails a further rounding and partial raising of the *a to ο (except after h) because of restrictions on possible diphthongs (§3.3.1). There are a handful of stems which preserve word-final *b, without a variant in w. Aside from Arabic loans like ladab 'polite person', alkab 'stirrup', alwaajib ~ alwaazib 'duty', and taazab 'miracle', the only stem attested in Timbuktu with final b is dob 'join, attach; joint' (<*dobu). Perhaps the presence of dow ~ dew 'sand' played a role in discouraging the shift of dob to #dow. Compilation of a full list of w-final stems reflecting *b would require extensive comparative work within the Songhay complex and will not be attempted here. Note, however, the following doublets involving Arabic *f>: algab ~ algow 'hawk sp.', assabab - assabow ~ sabab 'cause', citaab - kitaaw (~ kitaw) '(Koranic) tome', tiyaabu- tiyow 'widowhood'. From the same Arabic root Vfy'b involved in taazab

50 3 Phonology 'miracle', note laajow 'miracle', yentesu 'need' is perhaps from
3.10.2 Word-final nasals The distinction between word-final m and n is well preserved (in Timbuktu). There is modest synchronic evidence that word-final π is the result of merger of former *n and (velar nasal) *;;, see §3.4.2. See Appendixes 1 and 2 for dialectal data. 3.10.3 Sibilants KCh and DjCh are characterized by the shift of *z to j [dj], merging with inherited *j. The two consonants remain distinct in KS, HS, and the non-Malian Songhay varieties. I know of no exceptions to this shift in inherited native vocabulary. A few examples involving reconstructed *z are KS zuru = KCh jur 'run'; KS zaari = KCh jaari 'day', KS ize ~ iza = KCh ije 'child'. Examples of reconstructed *j are KS jinde = KChjinde 'voice', KSjirbi = KChjirbi 'sleep'. 3.10.4 Assimilation of *r, *y, *wto following consonant As noted in §3.6.2, r tends strongly to assimilate to a following alveolar across a morpheme or word boundary, especially within phrases. A number of stems formerly containing the clusters {*rt *rd *rs} now have geminate obstruents {tt dd ss] at least in the speech of most Songhays in the region considered here. In some cases, variants with the old *i€ cluster occur in upriver dialects, but for the speakers who have {if dd ss} there is no reason to set up base forms with iC. Examples are hosso 'type of griot', gassaka 'hate', gassi 'grind millet', mussu 'be lost', yadda 'consent', fatta 'exit', and kottu 'cut'. This process has also applied to the loan widdi 'work rosary beads' ( nn. An alternative progressive assimilation to rr is seen in ferre 'smell bad' and homophone ferre 'tree sp.', both from *ferde (Kaado preserves distinct tones for the two senses), and in harra 'miss (target)' from *harta. In §3.6.3, we noted synchronic assimilations of y to a following alveopalatal, and of w to a following labial, across a morpheme or word boundary within phrases. In the noun wocce '(woman's) co-wife' (i.e., a second wife of the same bigamous gentleman), we may have a case where this change occurred historically but where yc is no longer part of the lexical representation. The protoform would have been

3.10 Historical phonological notes

51

*woy-ce, cf. woy 'woman'. The male counterpart is harce '(woman's) male suitor', from *har-ce, cf. har 'man'.

3.10.5 Palatalization of velars Many stems now have c which reflects older *k, or j reflecting older *g. The velar underwent palatalization (and affrication) before a front vowel */ or *e by a process which still has some synchronic validity (§3.6.4), but in the stems in question the lexical representation now has the palatoalveolar affricate rather than the original velar stop. Examples are taaSi 'four' <*taaki, dide (alongside dike) for 'basket', jiji 'go up' <*zigi (via *jigi), and kanje 'knee'. The original velars are preserved in each case in one or more other Malian Songhay languages, and sometimes in upriver dialects or in DjCh. Palatalization has also been spreading in KS, where reanalyses of lexical representations are ongoing. This is therefore an interesting areal development cutting across the basic language divisions, linking KS especially with the adjoining Timbuktu variety of KCh.

3.10.6 Loss of final short vowel Stem-final high vowels {i u} have been dropped without trace in many *CVVCV stems. This process has occurred in Timbuktu KCh and in DjCh, but not in the upriver KCh towns such as Niafunko, and it is an interesting piece of evidence for direct relations between Timbuktu and Djenne". For the vowel to be dropped, it is necessary that the resulting C,VVC2 shape be pronounceable, which effectively limits the process to stems with a sonorant C2 and excludes stems where the long VV is high {// uu}. Examples of vowel dropping are beer 'be big', moor 'be distant', yoon 'rub in, anoint', doon 'millet cream', and taam 'pair of shoes'. Compare KS beer;, mooru, yoonu, doonu, and taami. The process does not apply when the consonant in question is an obstruent, so the bisyllabic form is always preserved in cases like yoobu 'market' andjeesi 'tilt'. I know of no case where the final vowel has been dropped in a stem with long high vowel, so stems like tuuru 'reply' and jiiri 'year* remain bisyllabic. (For further evidence regarding the historical role of long high vowels, see the following section). There are some stems that satisfy the conditions for the process which for some reason also preserve the bisyllabic shape, e.g., jaari 'day', maani '(animal) fat'. The examples known to me which undergo this *CVVCV —> C,VVC2 reduction have a C2 from the set {r n m}. It is difficult to say whether the absence of 7 and the semivowels { w y] from the inventory is accidental. Among the stems which do not reduce are laali 'be cursed (unfortunate)' and haawi 'be ashamed; shame'. Since certain stems even with C2 {r n m} do not reduce for reasons which are not entirely clear (/aari and maa/ii were just mentioned), I cannot determine whether examples like laali and haawi are similar isolated exceptions, or whether their C2 is incompatible with the

52

3 Phonology

reduction. It may be relevant that haawi, though now functioning as verb or noun, is likely to represent an original nominalization *haaw-i. Comparisons like KCh JUT with KS zuru 'run', and KCh wir with KS wiri 'seek', indicate that either KCh has dropped an original final vowel or that KS has added an echo vowel. The cases in question are of the shape Cir(i) or Cur(u) with tap r and short high vowel(s). Since KS also has some inherited verbs of the shape Cur without echo vowel (KCh = KS dur 'pound grain'), it is possible that KCh was the innovator and that the reconstructions are *zuru, * wiri, and *dur as in KS.

3.10.7 Shortening of original long high vowel in closed syllable It appears that original *CiiC and *CuuC stems (the final consonant being in all known cases a nasal) have shortened the long vowel to a short vowel. There is a tendency for long closed syllables in general to undergo a variable degree of shortening as a phonetic tendency (§3.7.9). We are here concerned with cases where the lexical representation has been permanently changed. To do this we must analyse the full set of potentially reconstructive *CVVC stems. Consider the forms in (51) (51)

a. b. c. d. e. f.

verb bun din ton cum cii fuu

gloss 'die' 'catch' 'fill' 'be truthful' 'speak' 'fart'

derivative

buun-o

gloss 'sickly (animal)'

— — ciimi ciini

'truth 'language, speech'

Comparative evidence suggests that at least (51a-c) are old *CVVC stems *buun, *diin. KCh shortened the vowels, while KS cognates dropped the final nasal (buu, dii, too). In (5 Id), internal reconstruction within KCh would point to *ciim, based on the noun ciimi, which presumably reflects *cum-i (the nominalizing suffix -/' is still productive in KS and elsewhere, though not in KCh itself)· The KCh cum would therefore derive from *ciim via shortened *cim (preserved in upriver dialects), with an irregular rounding to cum under the influence of the labial nasal. However, KS has verb cim ~ cum 'be truthful' and nominalization cim-i ~ cum-i 'truth' with short vowels, so the correct reconstruction (*cim or *ciim) is in doubt. In (51e), the noun ciini 'language' can be internally reconstructed as *ciin-i with the same nominalizing suffix. This time the problem is that the verb dii has CVV shape instead of the CVC shape of the verbs in (51a-c). However, DjCh ci ~ ein 'say' is compatible with a reconstruction *cin, and a variant ein is attested (though rare) in KCh in the same sense, so KCh cii 'speak' may reflect an idiosyncratic mutation or even be etymologically unrelated. In (5 If), comparative evidence suggests that fuu 'fart' may derive from *fuun or perhaps *fuu with nasalized vowel. Though more historical work is needed, it would seem that superheavy *CVVC stems with certain vowel qualities, namely *{uu n oo}, were unstable and required shortening of the long vowel (except before V-initial suffixes). There is no clear

3.10 Historical phonological notes

53

evidence that *CaaC and *CeeC were also shortened, though it is presently difficult to identify indisputable cases of these reconstructed stem shapes (with final nasals). Synchronically, CVVC stems are acceptable with non-high vowel {ee aa 00} before nasals or r, and with aa before semivowel (baar 'exchange', beer 'be big', maan 'approach', yaaw 'bull'), but many and perhaps all of these have acquired CVVC shape secondarily (from *CVVCV, or by loss of medial *C in *CVCVC). The alternation y&y 'be cold', yeen-ey 'coldness' (§4.3.1), yeen-o 'cold (adj.)' (§4.4.2) is also suggestive. KS has yey, yeyn-i, and yeyn-o, respectively, which are matched by the HS forms. A proto-form *yeyn for the verb 'be cold' deserves consideration. If valid, it would be a perhaps unique case of a superheavy syllable involving a short-nucleus diphthong. Since such a diphthong has no shorter counterpart, the only way to reduce the superheavy syllable was to drop the final nasal, and this happened in KCh as well as in KS.

3.10.8 Stem-final *ey to oy Comparative evidence indicates that some nonmonosyllabic stems ending in ...oy derive from *...ey following a labial consonant. Examples with preceding b are garboy ~ gorboy '(wild) date' (*garbey) and saaboy ~ saaboy 'leafless bush sp.' (*saabey). For kubey ~ kuboy 'encounter', both rounded and unrounded variants are recorded. A similar case involving m instead of b is himey- humoy 'bathe', where the rounding alternation extends into the vowel of the first syllable. Rounding is absent in other examples: hamey 'grap', garsambey 'tree sp.', sumbey '(nose) be elongated'. This complex historical situation is reflected in somewhat messy synchronic alternations between ey and oy in contractions involving ISgO ey following a V-fmal verb (§3.7.2), and involving surface forms of Abstractive nominalizing suffix -ey (§3.7.6). There are no clear cases of oy from *ey in monosyllabic stems, bey 'know', mey 'have', and fey 'separate' have no rounded variants.

3.10.9 Loss of *g In several stems, a former *g or possibly *r (velar-uvular fricative) has disappeared intervocalically or after a liquid *7 or *r. This is the source of several stems of the shape CaCaa like faraa 'become tired, suffer' from older *farga. An intervocalic example is loo 'lick', cf. KS logu (Bamba dialect 7ovu). It is possible that this involved an initial spirantization of *g to *r in a back-vowel environment, preserved in Bamba KS, with subsequent KCh deletion of this fricative.

3.10.10 Shifts among liquids Though both 1 and r are basic phonemes, there appear to have been some historical shifts, probably from *7 to r. For example, maraa 'assemble' may derive from Ar.

54

3 Phonology

malqaa 'meeting (place)'. The important quantifier kul 'all' is sometimes heard as km. The particle hal 'until' is likewise sometimes heard as bar.

3.10.11 Loanword phonology Arabic loanwords are tricky since they may come either from Classical Arabic (Timbuktu has long been a center for Islamic learning and most KCh speakers are Muslim), or from the local Hassaniya vernacular. Moreover, as noted in §3.7.8, many Arabic loans are regional terms found in many other West African languages such as Fulfulde and Bambara, and the provenience of individual borrowings may be indirect. Of particular interest are Arabic loans filtered through Tamashek (Tuareg), since this language makes a number of neutralizations in Arabic back consonants. Arabic consonants like Λ (voiceless pharyngeal fricative), f (voiced pharyngeal approximant), χ (voiceless uvular fricative), and r (voiced uvular fricative), are occasionally heard in loanwords in the religious domain, as spoken by certain Timbuktu speakers who have some knowledge of Arabic. However, none of these segments is well-established in KCh. The conversions in (52) are attested: (52)

Arabic consonantal conversions Arabic Ar. h —> KCh h ad-duhaa Ar. f—> KCh zero al-'arbafaa' Ar. χ —> KCh h or k al- 'aaxir-a al-xabar Ar. Y —> KCh Y al-bulr-a

KCh adduhaa allarbaa alaakara alhabar albaiga

gloss 'mid-morning' 'Wednesday' '(the) Hereafter' 'news' 'slippers'

There are isolated cases of deletion of one of the three Arabic consonants other than f. It is likely that the k output from Ar. x is characteristic of indirect loans (via Fulfulde?). There are a few cases of KCh £ for an Arabic back consonant, probably secondarily palatalized from earlier *k (again via Fulfulde?). Examples are albacir 'miser' (Ar. root Vox/) and perhaps baalioi 'adult man' (if from Ar. root VWr 'attain' with unexplained devoicing). French borrowings are likewise of variable provenience, sometimes entering directly and sometimes coming in via Bambara, Fulfulde, and other local languages. Newly borrowed verbs are generally taken over with final ee, representing the set of forms -er, -ez, -ait, etc., hence kaaree 'cut into squares' from Fr. correr. Vowel-final nouns are also often borrowed with a long vowel: kafee 'coffee'. The tendency to stress and lengthen the final French syllable is also apparent in borrowings from French consonant-final nouns, where we typically get a lengthened vowel and an extra final high vowel, as in sigireeti 'cigarette' and almeetu 'matches' (Fr. cigarette, allumettes).

Chapter 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation

4.1 Personal pronouns Personal pronouns can occupy the same kinds of syntactic positions as the lexical cores of "full" NPs. That is, a personal pronoun corresponds syntactically to an NP structure consisting maximally of a possessor, a head noun, an adjective, a numeral, a demonstrative, Def di, and PI yo (§5.A).

4.1.1 Person and number categories The morphologically distinct categories of personal pronouns are ISg, 1P1, 2Sg, 2P1, 3Sg, 3P1, 3SgF, 3P1F, Logo/3ReflSg, and Logo/3ReflPl. We sometimes use "1," "2", "3," "3F," and "Logo/3Refl" (note the quotation marks) as cover terms for the respective singular and plural categories. There are no gender or noun class distinctions; "F* stands for "Full" (not "Feminine"). An additional S or Ο at the end of a morpheme label means "subject" or "object." Most pronouns have invariant forms, but the simple 3Sg and 3P1 forms have morphologically distinct object forms (3SgO, 3P1O), and we make liberal use of the subject and object specifications in interlinear morpheme glossing to make the syntax clearer. ISg denotes speaker, and 2Sg denotes an individual addressee. All other singular categories (3Sg, 3SgF, Logo/3ReflSg) exclude speaker and addressee. For the semantics of plural pronouns, see the following section. There is no specifically generic pronoun (Fr. on, German man), but 2Sg is common in a generic (universal) human sense (§10.3.1). For the forms of third person pronouns, see §3.8.8. The primary grammatical split in this subsystem is between "3" and "3F* on the one hand and the undifferentiated "Logo/3Refl" (logophoric and third person reflexive) on the other. To a large extent the difference between "3" and "3F* is automatically determined by syntactic position, "3F' occurring in more "exposed" (autonomous) positions and "3" occurring in more or less cliticized positions. However, both are possible as postpositional complements and as possessors (§8.4.2). The Logo/3Refl pronouns express coindexation with a specific antecedent, either the attributed source (speaker-thinker) of the proposition (as with logophorics), or a syntactically specified NP (as with reflexives). It is possible for a Logo/3Refl pronoun to have both functions simultaneously, as in the final pronoun of 'He, (3Sg) said [he, (LogoSg) would hit himselfx (LogoSg & 3ReflSg),' which is coindexed both with the quoted speaker and with the clause-mate subject. For details see §10.1.1-4 on logophorics, and §10.2.1-4 on reflexives. A few examples of third person (including "3F," "Logo," and "3Refl") pronouns are in (53-56). English gender distinctions may be helpful in keeping references clear but have no KCh counterpart.

56 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (53)

simple third person pronoun

a kar 3SgS hit

ga 3SgO

'Hex hither/ (54)

(55)

(56)

"3F' pronoun a. ay gar gi [ijga ISgS hit 3P1O [3SgF Ί found them at his place.' b. ;/ga daa na ay 3SgF Emph Foe ISgS 'It was she [focus] whom I saw.'

doo] at] guna see

Logo pronoun a bar ggu^ o 3SgS say LogoSgS Impf 'Hex said he, would come here.'

kaa come

nee here

3Refl pronoun a. a guna [ggu baaba] 3SgS see [3ReflSg father] 'Shex saw herx (own) father.'

b. a 3SgS

here change

rjgu [nda...] 3ReflSgO [with ...]

'Hex turned himself, into ...' (reflexive verb, §10.2.3)

4.1.2 Plural pronoun categories As in perhaps all human languages, "1P1" is used for the combination of speaker with any other entity. There is no inclusive-exclusive distinction. "2P1" denotes multiple addressee, or any combination of addressee(s) with one or more non-speaker, nonaddressee entities. However, conjunctions of the component pronouns are also rather common (Ί and you'). In KCh, such combinations are asymmetrical and are more revealingly glossed as, e.g., Ί [with you]'. For more details on conjunctions of pronouns, see §5.11. Pronominal categories ("Logo" and "3Refl") that involve coindexation with an antecedent NP raise the issue of which category to use when the antecedent and bound NPs are "sloppily" coreferential. Typically, the denotation of one such NP strictly contains the denotation of the other. The syntax of sloppy coreferentiality is treated in §10.4.

4.1 Personal pronouns

57

4.1.3 Preference for plural over singular pronouns as possessors In English, it is common to say my house or her house to denote a dwelling that is actually inhabited or owned by several persons. In KCh, it is more usual to say Our house' and 'their house', even when the additional dwellers-owners have not been part of the preceding discourse. An expression like 'my house' may sound presumptuous and self-centered in ordinary contexts, while 'her house' just sounds odd, though neither is ungrammatical and either can be felicitously used under certain conditions. The most common expression denoting a dwelling is a postpositional phrase with doo, used like French chez, as in (57). (57)

a.

b.

yee koy [yer doo] ISgSImpf go [1P1 chez] Ί am going home.' (= 'Je vais chez moi') a-a koy [qgi-ye doo] 3SgS-Impf go [SReflPl chez] 'She is going home.'

Note that the postpositional complement is 1P1 in (57a) and SReflPl in (57b), in spite of the singular subject pronouns, hence literally e.g. Ί am going to our house.' The disfavoring of singular pronouns does not usually apply to 2Sg in its generic sense. There are many textual examples of the type 'Let's say a guyx comes to youry house (ni doo),' where the 2Sg pronoun represents anyone. In such contexts, considerations of social delicacy are suspended. There is no similar avoidance of singular possessor with kin terms, for example. 'My father' and similar expressions are perfectly felicitous, except e.g. when the speaker is addressing a sibling, where Our father' or 'father' is appropriate.

4.1.4 Subject and Object forms of pronominals The simplest type of NP is a bare personal pronoun. The basic forms are shown in (58); variants and irregular allomorphs are commented on below. (58)

personal pronouns (S=subject, O=object) category S only S=Q ISg ay 1P1 yer 2Sg ni 2P1 wor~ war 3Sg a

3P1 3SgF 3P1F Logo/3ReflSg Logo/3ReflPl

/

Ο only ey

ga

gi(-ji) rjga ~ ga ggi-yo (etc.) rjgu ~ rju qgu-yo ~ rjgi-yo (etc.)

58 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation On the optional reducation of 2SgS ni to n in some but not all morphosyntactic positions, see §3.8.2. For irregular ISgS yc and 2SgS ma in certain combinations, see §3.8.1-2. For numerous additional variants of rjgi-yoandrjgu-yo, see §3.8.8. (58) shows distinct subject and object forms for the ISg, 3Sg, and 3P1. The other pronouns have a single, invariant form (shown in a central S=O column between the S-only and O-only columns). In the case of ISg, the orthographic distinction reflects what is arguably a subphonemic positional variation in the pronunciation of the diphthong nucleus (§3.3.1). The only real subject-object variation is therefore in the "3" category, where the object form (which directly follows the verb) is 3Sg ga or 3P1 gi (sometimes palatalized to ji, §3.6.4). Some examples of the ISg, 3Sg, and 3P1 are given in (59); the syntactic order is subject + verb + object as in English. (59)

Examples of subject and object personal pronouns (with kar 'hit') a. ay kar gi Ί hit them.' b. a kar ey 'She hit me.' c. i kar ga They hit him.'

Personal pronouns may not be directly followed by Def di in any position, though this morpheme is common after nouns and after the demonstrative pronoun woo 'this, that'. The nominal PI morpheme yo is not used with 1P1, 2P1, or (simple) 3P1 pronouns, but the 3P1F and Logo/3ReflPl pronouns end in -yo. The subject forms of personal pronouns regularly contract with a following Imperfective morpheme, underlying //o//. The full Impf form go, the usage of which is limited in KCh, does not contract. The contracted forms are shown in (60). For phonological discussion see §3.7.1. (60)

combinations of subject (S) pronoun and Impf o category simple S form S + Impf (phonetic) ISg ay Ejei] [jero], [joro] 1P1 yer [no:] 2Sg ni [woro] 2P1 war(~ WOT) 3Sg a [a:] 3P1 i [i:] 3SgF gga [rjgo:] 3P1F rjgi-yo [rjgijo:] Logo/3ReflSg rjgu-rju [rjgo:] Logo/3ReflPl rjgu-yo~rjgi-yo [rjgujoi - rjgijo:]

transcription yee yer ο no-o wor ο a-a i-i rjgao Q9J-yojo rjgu-yoo (etc.)

The two phonetic [rjgo:] combinations are differentiated in our transcription. Examples of aspectual contrasts in sentences are in (61). The perfective is unmarked.

4.1 Personal pronouns

(61)

a. b. c.

a koy a-a koy a har rjgu koy a har rjgu^o koy ay guna gi yee guna gi

59

'He went.' 'He is going (will go).' 'Shex said shex (LogoSg) had gone.' 'She, said she, (LogoSg) was going (would go).' Ί saw them.' Ί see (will see) them.'

4.1.5 Pronominal forms as possessors and before postpositions Pronouns used as possessors of a following head noun take the same form used in subject function, allowing of course for regular phonological rules. Examples with harme 'brother' (abbreviated "B") are ay harme di 'my B', yer harme di Our B', IM h rme di 'your(Sg) B', war harme di 'your(Pl) B', a harme di 'his or her (3Sg) B', ι harme di 'their (3P1) B', ηgu harme di 'his or her (Logo/3ReflSg) B', and ijgi-ya harme di 'their (Logo/3ReflPl) B'. There is no general avoidance of or reluctance to use simple 3Sg or 3P1 pronouns in possessive function in KCh. (KS, on the other hand, does avoid 3Sg and 3P1 possessive pronouns.) However, "3F' pronouns are sometimes used instead of 3Sg and 3P1 in possessor function, as noted in §3.8.8. Postpositions specify marked cases, generally spatial in nature. Personal pronouns use the subject rather than object form (if overtly different), before a postposition. In the dative only, the ISg and 2Sg have special irregular forms in the normal postverbal (enclitic) position. In (62), last column, "=S" means "same as subject form." (62)

personal pronoun forms before postpositions cateor subject form dative (postverbaH ay yene (~ eene ~ ene) 1P1 yer yer se ni 2Sg mana (~ mane) 2P1 war(~ wor) war se *—a a se 3Sg 3P1 i se 3SgF rjga se 3P1F rjgi-yo rjgi-ye se Logo/3ReflSg qgu(~rju) r)gu se (~ rju se) Logo/3ReflPl rjgu-yo~ rjgi-yo ijgu-ye se(etc.) 1

before other Postp =S =S =S =S =S =S =S rjgi-ye =S rjgu-ye~rjgi-ye

For analysis of the irregular ISg and 2Sg postverbal dative forms, see §3.8.1-2. When a ISg or 2Sg dative form is fronted in focused position, we get the regular forms ay se and ni se, respectively. For the -yo- -ye alternations in the 3P1F and Logo/3ReflPl forms, see §3.8.6. The unrounded -ye variant is also heard as -ya. A few examples of postpositional phrases in their usual postverbal position are given in (63), where the PP is bracketed even when (arguably) monomorphemic. Verbs are noo 'give', har 'say', haijga 'follow', and too 'arrive'.

60 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (63)

a. wor noo ga [i se] b. i noogi [yene] c. ay har [mana] '... ' d. no-o harjga [ay banda] e. yer ο too [ni doo]

'You(Pl) gave it [to them].' They gave them [to me].' Ί said [to you(Sg)], "...'" 'You(Sg) follow [after me].' 'We will arrive [at you(Sg)] (=chez vous).'

(64a-b) illustrate the shift from irregular clitic forms to the regular forms of ISg and 2Sg datives when fronted to focused position.

(64)

a.

b.

[ay se] na_^ a noo ga [ISg Dat] Foe 3SgS give 3SgO 'It was [to me] [focus] that he gave it.' [ni se] na^ a noo ga [2 S g Dat] Foe 3Sg give 3SgO 'It was [to you(Sg)] [focus] that he gave it.'

Other postpositional phrases may also be fronted, but since their postverbal (clitic) forms are already regular there is no change in form when they are fronted.

4.1.6 Pronominal forms preceding and following nda 'and, with' The morpheme nda with a following NP means 'and, with' in a broad range of senses (conjunction, association, instrumental) described in §5.11. A following pronoun takes the object form. We can best see this with the 3Sg and 3P1, which reliably distinguish subject (S) from object (O) pronoun forms (§4.1.4). Examples in (65).

(65)

ni nda ga 2Sg with 3SgO 'you(Sg) and he (she, it)' b. ay nda gi ISg with 3P1O Ί and they' a.

There are several ways to explain the use of object rather than subject pronoun forms in the right conjunct of nda; see §9.1.1 and §9.5.1. The left conjuncts in (65a-b) are compatible with the subject series, but this is only true for first and second persons. A nonlogophoric third person left conjunct must take a full ("F") form, 3SgF rjga or 3P1F ngi-ya (§3.8.8, §8.4.2). Left conjunct position is therefore morphologically best taken as parallel to position before DF (discourse-functional) morphemes.

4.2 Demonstratives

61

4.2 Demonstratives 4.2.1 Demonstrative pronoun The basic demonstrative pronoun is woo 'this, that'. It is a general deictic, like Fr. ce, and can be discourse-anaphoric ('that woman we were just talking about') or deictic ('this woman here', 'that woman over there'). Two examples are given in (66).

(66)

a.

b.

woo (di) Dem (Def) 'this (that) one' har hirjka woo man two Dem 'these (those) two men'

(di) (Def)

I transcribe the morpheme as woo with a long vowel, which I hear in contexts where the morpheme receives some stress. However, many instances on the recorded tapes lack obvious phonetic length. Although woo can be translated as either 'this' or 'that' in context, the proximal reading is unmarked. In contexts where two similar entities at different distances from the deictic center are contrasted, simple woo is generally used for the proximal entity and a combination of woo with a nonproximal demonstrative adverb is used for the other, as in (67). (67)

a na ci woo, woo 3Sg Neg be Dem, Dem 'not this one, (rather) that one over there'

hentu there

For more on the syntax of woo, see §5.5.

4.2.2 Frozen combinations of noun plus *woo There is a closed set of forms which appear to be the result of fusion of demonstrative * woo in the proximal sense 'this' with one of a small set of nouns denoting locations or times which are frequently combined with demonstratives. The full set of examples known to me from KCh are given in (68), below. The forms in (68) can no longer be easily derived from, e.g., //ciji woo// by reasonable synchronic phonological rules, since woo only sporadically contracts (see §3.7.5 for discussion). We therefore omit internal hyphens. Note that the first vowel of mise often irregularly shifts to u in the "demonstrative" forms, influenced by the preceding labial and by the rounded vowel of the following syllable. Dictionary entries will make cross-references between related simple and "demonstrative" forms.

62 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (68)

Frozen "demonstrative" combinations with * woo simple noun gloss "demonstrative" form ganda 'land' gandoo koyra 'town, city' koyroo öiji 'night' Sijoo jaari 'day' jaaroo ban 'day' höö (<*han woo) jiiri 'year' jiiroo mise 'manner' misoo ~ musoo

gloss 'this country' 'this town' 'tonight' 'today' 'today, nowadays' 'this year' 'thus, like this'

The "demonstrative" forms in (68) with temporal meaning ('tonight', 'today', 'this year') generally function as adverbial modifiers with no further (e.g. postpositional) morpheme. On the other hand, gandoo 'this country' is more noun-like and may take a postposition if appropriate. The versatile form misoo (and its variants) is commonly used, with Def di, as a NP in the sense 'something like that', either by itself or in apposition to a preceding NP. The other * woo forms in (68) avoid di.

4.2.3 Demonstrative and deictic adverbs Major deictic adverbs (and adverbial phrases) in KCh are given in (69). (69)

adverb nee doodi ~ dooti hentu moreyda

gloss 'here' 'there' (anaphoric) Over there' (deictic) 'now, then'

The variant form doodi is possibly still recognizable formally as the combination of doo 'place' and Def di. However, doo 'place' is now used mainly as a postposition 'at (the place of)' (like French chez), and as compound final in a few combinations like kani-doo 'bedding' (originally 'sleep-place'). The usual noun for 'place' is naqgu ~ norjgu. The connection of doodi with doo is probably now opaque to native speakers, so we transcribe doodi as a unit. The variant dootf is about equally common, and is even less easy to segment synchronically since Def di has no #ti allomorph elsewhere. Transcribing doodi - dooti as a unit makes it parallel to the proximal counterpart nee, which does not co-occur with Def di. moreyda 'now' is perhaps historically segmentable as *mor ey da(a) or the like, including *mor 'now', and Emphatic *da(a) (KS da, KCh daa) in an augmented form *ey da(a) attested elsewhere in greeting formulae. Cf. Appendixes 1 and 2 (section § 11.1.4) for cognates. For nda 'with' preceding a deictic adverbial, see §5.11.4.

4.3 Nominalizations

63

4.2.4 Emphatic and Approximative modifiers of deictics The most common modifiers for demonstratives are Emphatic daa 'right (here, there)' and Approximative here 'around'. There is also a special extension ofmoreyda. daa strongly emphasizes the referential correctness or the spatiotemporal exactitude of the deictic: woo di daa 'that very one', nee daa 'right here', doodi daa 'right there, that very place'. I do not recall hearing it with moreyda 'now', but this form may already end in a frozen instance of daa etymologically (see preceding section). See §8.5.1 for more on emphatics. Locative ra or kuna cannot be added directly to an adverb like nee 'here' (#nee ra, ttdoodi ra). (Such combinations are common in KS.) If a DF morpheme like Emph daa or demonstrative woo intervenes, it is possible to add a postposition: nee daa ra, literally 'in right here', used like English right in(side) here; nee woo kuna 'in here'. Acre has a basic sense 'around, along, in the vicinity of, with certain spatial and temporal expressions. With deictics, it is used chiefly in the combination nee here 'around here', though doodi here 'around there' and hentu here 'around there' are also attested. The approximative sense is not always clear, and nee here in particular often seems interchangeable with nee (except before Emph daa). The most common temporal combination is ciji here 'at night'. here occurs in phrases containing kamba 'hand' denoting sides, not only 'left' versus 'right' but also 'this (near) side' versus 'that (far) side' over an intervening barrier such as a river. Examples are kamba woo here ('hand Dem Approx') On this side', nee here kamba di 'this (near) side', and hentu here kamba di 'that (far) side'. here and daa may combine, as in nee here daa 'right around here'. moreyda 'now' has an extended form moreyda ciino, which is perhaps a little more emphatic than the simple form but is not so emphatic as English right now. moreyda and moreyda ciino are fairly interchangeable. The second element is related to ciina 'be small', and moreyda ciino was therefore originally a kind of diminutive. It is synchronically irregular, since ciina does not shift its final vowel to o in any other combination. Historically, the final ο may possibly reflect demonstrative *woo (compare §4.2.2). For the more or less interchangeable use of simple and diminutive forms of 'now', compare Spanish ahora and (Latin American) ahorita.

4.3 Nominalizations 4.3.1 Abstractive nominal (-ey ~ -rey) A fairly wide range of verbs have a nominal Abstr derivative ending in y. The phonology is somewhat obscure, but an underlying suffixal form //-ey// is reasonable (see §3.7.6).

64 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (70) gives a fairly complete inventory of Abstr forms ending in y which occur in my data, and ends with one isolated instance ending in w. For zero derivation of Abstr nominals, see the next section. (70)

Abstractive nominals (chiefly ending in y) simple verb gloss Abstr nominal a. baan 'be light, soft' baan-ey beer 'big, great' beer-ey jeen 'be aged' jeen-ey kaan 'be sweet' kaan-ey maan 'be near' maan-ey meer 'be ugly' meer-ey moor 'be distant; be sour' moor-ey b. futu 'be bad' fut-ey sendu 'be difficult' send-ey c. boron 'be bitter' honn-ey koron 'be hot' konn-ey tin~tim 'be heavy' tin-ey, tiq-ey 'become dry' koog-ey koo yey 'be cold' yeen-ey dumbu 'be cut; (heart) beat' -dumb-oy nimsi 'regret' nims-ey door 'harm; be sore' door-ey feer Open; be opened' -feer-ey gassaka 'hate' gassak-ey hiijey-hiije 'get married' hiij-ey bin 'be able' hin-ey 'fail' jen -jerjey (§4.6.5) -kasine -kasin-ey 'mate (in cpds.)' 'be unable' moijgo morjg-oy toone 'accuse' toon-ey waafaku 'agree' waafak-oy 'know' bey-rey,bey-re e. bey Own' mey-rey mey daabu 'close; be closed' daabu-rey 'get, earn' duu-rey,duu-ra duu duma 'sow (millet)' duma-rey joijgo-joijgo 'broken up (adj)' joqgo-rey taka 'create' taka-rey 'ruin; be ruined' hasar-ow f. hasara *&

'

· ·

gloss 'lightness, softness' 'respect, funeral' Old age' 'sweetness' 'nearness' 'ugliness' 'distance, sourness' 'evil (n.)' 'difficulty' 'bitterness' 'hotness' 'heaviness' 'dryness' 'coldness' '(heart-)beat' 'regret(-fulness)' 'harm, injury' Openness' 'hate, grudge' 'marriage' 'means, power' 'lack of (in cpds.)' 'matehood' 'inability' 'attack (n.)' 'agreement' 'knowledge' 'wealth ' 'covering, lid' 'earnings' 'seed(s)' 'remnants, debris' 'creature' 'destruction'

The examples in (70a-c) show that this formation is most productive with verbs of adjectival quality (see §4.4). (70a) consists of CVVC stems with -ey ending in the Abstr. (70b) involves V-final verbs. The examples in (70c) show minor phonological irregularities in the stem shapes. honn-ey and konn-ey can be accounted for, at least historically, as (irregular) Syncope

4.3 Nominalizations

65

followed by r-assimilation, see (42) in §3.7.7 and (33) in §3.6.2, above. For the velar nasal in tiq-ey, see §3.4.2. In the cases of koog-ey and yeen-ey, note that the irregular stem changes have the effect of producing a CVVC- stem shape before a suffix, bringing these stems into line with the CVVC shape typical of verbs of adjectival quality (as in (70a)). The examples in (70d-e) involve verbs that do not denote prototypical adjectival qualities. The Abstr -ey nominalization is not productive in these other semantic domains, and the forms shown are a full list of the examples known to me. In some cases (hin-ey, -jeijey §4.6.5, toon-ey), there does not appear to be a close synchronic connection between the simple verb and the Abstr nominal due to semantic divergences. The examples in (70e) involve a suffix -rey, occasionally with a reduced variant -ra or -re. In two of the examples, using -rey rather than -ey has the effect of avoiding a double diphthong #...ey-ey. Except perhaps for bey-rey the sense of the nominal is not really abstractive (action itself), rather product-of-action or instrumental. (70f) gives the one case of final w. It is phonologically possible to segment the form as //hasara-w//, since underlying //aw// would naturally be treated as the ow ~ aw diphthong, which is pronounced [ow] in the relevant position (§3.3.1). For Abstr nominals in compounds with a preceding noun stem, see §6.3.1.

4.3.2 Zero-derived nominals and minor nominalizations Many stems are used both as nouns and verbs without overt derivational modification. In such cases there is no morphological test for determining which function (if any) is basic and which derived, though in individual cases we can make a judgement based on meaning and frequency. An exhaustive analysis is beyond the scope of this grammar, but a few examples, given in (71), will hint at their range. (71)

Noun-verb pairs without derivational markers stem gloss (verb) a. gaani 'dance' haawi 'be ashamed' b. boon 'be pretty' faii 'toil in fields' sinti 'begin' c. kuu 'be long, high' beer 'be big' d. doon 'sing' faraa 'be tired, suffer' kufu 'be bubbly, foam'

gloss (noun) 'dance' 'shame' 'beauty' '(crop) field* 'beginning' 'length, height' 'size' 'song' 'fatigue, hardship' 'bubbles, suds'

kufal

'lock'

'key'

seere taabu fafaa

'dam up' 'fold; become folded' 'pamper (child)'

'dam, dike' '(a) fold' 'kid (child)'

66 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation The cases in (71a-b) involve stems ending in L In some of these cases the noun is actually an old abstractive in suffix *-i (still productive in KS). This is clearly true of gaaniand haawi (7la), where comparative evidence points to verbs *gaan 'dance' and *haaw 'be ashamed', and to nominalizations *gaan-i 'dance' and *haaw-i 'shame'; KCh has generalized the old noun forms to both functions. There are a few other apparent vestiges of the *-/ suffix. Related to duma 'sow (millet)', aside from duma-rey 'seeds' mentioned in the preceding section there is another form dumi 'seeds', ciimi 'truth' (*oiim-i) and ciini 'language' (*ciin-i) are discussed in §3.10.7. In (71b), there is no comparable direct evidence that the noun originally had the *-i suffix and the nominal and verbal forms may simply involve the same stem. The cases in (71c-d), a very small sampling of the many observed examples, illustrate the difficulty of determining the direction of derivation (verbalization of noun, or nominalization of verb). (71c) involves verbs of adjectival quality, and the nouns can be taken as derived on semantic grounds. (7Id) involves more active verbs. If we take the (7Id) verbs as basic, we can analyse some nouns as product-of-action nominals ('song', 'fold', perhaps 'bubbles'), Instrumentals ('key'), verbal nouns ('beginning'), or characteristic patient ('kid'). In several cases, though, we could also take the nouns as basic and analyse the verbs as expressing some more general action involving the denoted entities, e.g. 'sing' = 'make a song', 'be bubbly' = 'make bubbles', 'lock' = 'shut with key', 'pamper' = 'treat like a kid'. Compound verbs of the type [verb ka verb], linked by Infinitival ka, can have zero-derived nominals: koy ka kaa 'go and come' (verb) or 'going and coming' (noun). Derivatives, especially causatives, are easily nominalized: jur^ndi 'cause to run, drive' (verb) or 'driving' (noun). There are a handful of cases where a noun-verb pair of the same general type as in (7 Id) involves a small phonological difference. These presumably reflect old derivational mechanisms, no longer productive. Entirely irregular are fun 'pierce' versus rune 'hole'; fiisi 'sweep' versus fisaa 'broom'; and hawru 'eat evening meal' versus hawre 'evening meal (noun); eat evening meal (verb)'.

4.3.3 Characteristic nominals (-koy, -koyni, -kom) There is a simple noun kokoy meaning 'leader, chief. It appears to have a short form -koy in the now-frozen yerkoy 'God' (originally Our Leader' with 1P1 pronoun yef). The forms -koy and -koyni, which are probably historically related to kokoy, occur in a considerable number of derived nominals used to define the status of a person by reference to some salient personal feature or activity. We will refer to these morphemes as Characteristic] nominalizers. -koy can be added to noun or verb stems, while -koyni seems to be added only to noun stems, -koy is much more common than -koyni overall. All examples of -koyni involve permanent and fundamentally important characteristics. Some examples of -koy are of this type, but -koy can also be used to denote transient characteristics or roles ('assailant') or relations to specific others ('close friend'). The only doublets I know of are faraa-koy 'weary person' plus faraa-koyni 'person living in misery' (verb

4.3 Nominalizations

67

faraa 'be weary* or 'suffer', noun faraa 'weariness' or 'suffering'), and gaabi-koy alongside gaabi-koyni 'strong person' (noun gaabi 'strength'). The full set of -koyni derivatives in my data is given as (72). A generous sample of examples of -koy is displayed in (73). (72)

(73)

Characteristic nominals in -koyni stem V.N gloss jirey N 'leprosy' lakal N 'mind' too/ N 'fetish' kotto N 'sorcery' faraa N 'misery' gaabi N 'strength'

Char nominal jirey-koyni lakal-koyni toor-koyni kotto-koyni faraa-koyni gaabi-koyni

Characteristic nominals in -koy stem V.N gloss a. baa V 'want' 'knowledge' beyrey N 'herd (animals)' boy V 'read, study' öow V doon V,N 'sing; song' 'body; camp' gaa N hasar-ow N 'waste, damage' 'hunt' hoo V 'house' huu N jr'aari N 'success' (<'day') kallasi V,N 'protection)' 'fall' kam V 'hit' £ar V kokosi N 'scale(s)' 'hunched back' kooma N laamu N 'govern, reign' 'name' maa N maamala V,N '(do) business' safari V 'heal, treat' 'table' faaba7 N taayla N 'bald spot' b. taa(taam)V 'sew (shoe)'

glosj 'leper' 'intelligent person' 'fetishist' 'sorcerer' 'person in misery' 'strong person'

Char nominal baa-koy beyrey-koy boy-koy cow-koy doon-koy gaa-koy hasar-ow-koy hoo-koy huu-koy jaari-koy kallasi-koy kam-koy kar-koy kokosi-koy kooma-koy laamu-koy maa-koy maamala-koy safari-koy taabal-koy taayla-koy taam-taa-koy

gloss 'close friend' 'expert, scholar' 'herder, shepherd' 'expert, scholar' 'singer' 'leader, rich man' 'spendthrift' 'hunter' 'head of household' 'famous person' 'Protector' (=God) 'assailant' One who hits' 'scaly thing' 'hunchback' Overlord' 'famous person' 'merchant' 'healer' 'petty merchant' 'bald person' 'shoemaker'

Some denominal examples in -koy can be paraphrased as One who has the physical or mental trait N' (N = leprosy, intelligence, scales, bald spot). When N denotes an external object, the best paraphrase is One who has mastery or control over N' (N = fetish, table stand, house). This leads naturally to the deverbal (agentive) uses of -koy, which can be paraphrased as One who Vs', especially One who Vs habitually and competently' (V = sing, hunt, govern, make shoes). In the case of cow-koy

68 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation 'expert, scholar', there is probably more emphasis on the cumulative result of a past activity ('read, study') than on its current continuation. Although most cases of -koy involve a single preceding morpheme (73a), or occasionally include an incorporated noun stem generically representing the direct object (73b), I have one example of -koy taking scope over a larger phrase (74). (74)

alwakati addaruura-nte yo time disadvantageous-Partpl PI £iji maasu dira-koy woo yo night middle walk-Char Dem PI 'those who walk around in the middle of the night at dangerous times'

Perhaps there is really a break between [alwakati addaruura-nte yo] and the rest, but minimally the Characteristic nominal is £iji maasu dira-koy 'middle-of-the-night walker'. The data also include a few examples of another nominalizer of the same general type, -kom. In most of the examples, the stem to which -kom is added is attested both as verb and noun, which makes it difficult to determine whether -kom is basically deverbal (i.e., Agentive), denominal (like -koyni), or both (like -koy). The impression one gets from the semantics of the attested forms is that -kom is probably deverbal, but since the formation is unproductive this cannot be conclusively demonstrated and I will provisionally classify -kom as another Characteristic morpheme like -koy and -koyni. The examples of -kom are those in (75). (75)

Characteristic nominals in -kom stem V.N gloss doon V,N 'sing; song' faraa V,N 'toil; weariness' futu V,Adj 'be nasty, angry' guttu V 'be greedy' hollo V,Adj 'be crazy' rjaare V 'beg' tarjgariV,N 'tell a lie; (a) lie' wirci V,N 'be sick; illness'

Char nominal gloss doon-kom 'singer' faraa-kom 'manual laborer' futu-kom 'enraged; rabid (animal)' guttu-kom 'greedy person, glutton' hollo-kom 'crazy person' rjaare-kom 'beggar' tarjgari-kom 'liar' wiroi-kom 'sick person, patient'

The forms doon-kom and faraa-kom occurred in texts but are rejected as ungrammatical or said to be marginal by other informants. 'Singer' is usually doon-koy, faraa-koyand faraa-koyni were mentioned at the beginning of this section. The remaining forms in (75) are well-attested, hollo 'be crazy' can denote spirit possession as well as mental illness.

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69

4.3.4 Participle and Ordinal (-nie) I use the term "participle" for a common derivation in suffix -nie. The same suffix is used to produce the ordinal form of numerals. A range of examples is given in (76), divided into various categories which in some cases have fuzzy boundaries. (76)

-nie derivatives stem V.N gloss derivative a. ordinals (a-)foo Num One' lawal ...-/bo Num '...-one' ...-foo-nte 'two' (a-)hiijka Num (a-)hiijka-nte (a-)taaSi Num 'four' (a-)taaci-nte (a-)guu Num 'five' (a-)gu-nte 'six' /ddu Num iddu-nte waratjka Num 'twenty' waraqka-nte WOv-iaa&'Num 'forty' woy-taaci-nte yo/jgru Num 'hundred' jorjgu-nte nwTyo Num 'million' b. denominals addaruuraN addaruura-nte 'disadvantage' albarka N 'spiritual power' albarka-nte daame N 'festive ambience' daame-nte dowla N 'prestige' dowla-nte c. unreduplicated verbs of adjectival quality V felew 'be light, weak' felew-nte V futu 'be bad, enraged' futu-nte V fuuye 'be lazy, idle' fuuye-nte V guma 'be inexpensive' guma-nte herey V,N 'hunger' herey-nte V jaaso 'be very bad' jaaso-nte saahi V 'be solid' saahi-nte soobey V 'be grave' soobey-nte V tey 'be wet' tey-nte V timme 'be entire' timmo-nte wirci V,N 'be sick; illness' wirci-nte yaraasu V 'be easy' yaraasu-nte yekuwa V,N 'be firm; strength' yekuwa-nte V yumi 'be smooth' yumi-nte d. regularly reduplicated verbs of adjectival quality boto-boto V '(mud) get thick' boto-boto-nte petepete V 'be oversized' petepete-nte yeliyeli V 'be tinted' yeliyeli-nte (continues ...)

gloss 'first' (suppletive) '...-first' 'second' 'fourth' 'fifth' 'sixth' 'twentieth' 'fortieth' 'hundredth' 'millionth' 'disadvantageous' 'powerful' 'interesting' 'prestigious' 'light, weak' 'bad, enraged' 'lazy, idle' 'inexpensive' 'hungry' 'very bad' 'solid' 'grave' 'wet' 'entire' 'sick' 'easy' 'firm' 'smooth' 'thick (mud)' 'be oversized' 'tinted'

70 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (76, cont.)

-nie derivatives stem V.N gloss derivative gloss e. motion verbs bisa V 'pass by' bisa-nte 'having passed' koy V 'go' koy-nte 'departure' windi V 'go in circle' windi-nte 'round, circular' f. telic verbs (actions with an endpoint determining an ensuing state) ben V 'finish' ben-nte 'finishing touches' t_x daabu V 'close; be closed' daabu-nte 'closed' feet V Open; be opened' feer-nte Opened' V haaga 'fry' haaga-nte 'fried' hasara V 'be ruined' hasara-nte 'ruined, spoiled' horjgu V 'think, reflect' hoijgu-nte 'having thought' laali V 'curse; be cursed' laali-nte 'accursed' V maraa 'assemble' maraa-nte 'combined' V musey 'rub; tan (hides)' musey-nte 'tanned' V mussu 'be down and out' mussu-nte 'down and out' yahdar V 'get ready' yahdar-nte 'ready' g. others bey V 'know' bey-nte 'kindly (person)' V filla 'repeat, do again' filla-nte 'next, succeeding' V guna 'see' guna-nte 'appearance' V 'pester, bother' torro-nte torro 'bothersome'

Participles function as nouns or modifying adjectives. (KCh does not use participial clauses in DjCh fashion for resultative backgrounded clauses in narrative.) Participles can be derived from numerals, from verbs of adjectival quality, from motion and other action verbs, and in a few cases apparently from nouns. The ordinal type in (76a) is productive and applies to all basic numerals. The Absolute prefix a- is used in the same way in the cardinals and ordinals for those numerals which take this prefix. An example of an ordinal based on a complex numeral phrase is (a-)woy^cindi-hiijka-nte 'twelfth', the -nie taking the entire phrase in its semantic scope, lawal 'first' (
4.4 Morphology of adjectives

71

takes zero. On the other hand, a final diphthong, a final o in the verb itself, or a lexicalized CVCV-CVCV reduplication favors -nte over -o. The examples in (76e-f) mostly involve action verbs. Here the -nie participle is generally an adjective (occasionally a verbal noun) denoting a state resulting from the action. Semantically, the entity described by the adjectival cases is generally a patient or theme. However, in the case of totro-nte 'bothersome, annoying, irritating' in (76g), the participle appears to denote the agent (botherer) rather than patient (botheree). As noted above, ordinals in -nte take Absolute prefix a- under the same conditions as do cardinals. Other participles in -nte can take Absol i- when the preceding noun slot is vacant, as in i-futu-nte di 'the nasty one' (§4.4.3). This indicates that participles can be treated as adjectives. However, certain participles can alternatively be treated as noun stems and so dispense with ;-, as in ruf u-nie di (same meaning).

4.3.5 Use of Infinitival ka as nominalization Infinitival VPs beginning with ka are almost always attached to other VPs, for example in the very common serial-verb construction (§9.7). I do have one textual passage where an infinitival VP is used as a nominalization in fronted (focalized) position (77).

(77)

a na 3SgS Neg

na

ci [[[ka be [[[Inf

yee

mey have

ga 3SgO

[ka [Inf

dam do

ga]] 3SgO]]

hää]

Foe ISgSImpf ask] 'It's not [owning it and doing it] [focus] that I'm asking (about).' Here a na ci is a higher-level negation (§9.3.2). The entire complex phrase ka mey ga [ka dam ga] functions as the focalized constituent. The internal ka before dam is the VP-linking use of ka and is not problematic. However, the ka before mey is not a VP-linker and functions here as a nominalizer. When the two VPs to be linked are very short (i.e., just a verb stem each), the nominalizing ka is not used and the VERB, ka VERB2 sequence is used as a zero-derived nominalization; see jokoro ka sakara in (218) in §6.3.2, below. The presence of object pronominals in both VPs in (77), 'have it' and 'do it', seems to require an overt nominalizer. I have not recorded an infinitival VP as complement of an adposition, or as a conjunct of nda 'and'.

4.4 Morphology of adjectives 4.4.1 Verbs of adjectival quality The derivationally unmarked form of most "adjectives" is an intransitive verb predicating an adjective-like (i.e. involuntary and enduring) quality of a subject NP, or

72 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation the transition into such a state. Thus / moor 'they were distant' or 'they became distant, went far away'. These verbs are collectively designated "verbs of adjectival quality." The verb form is used in predications of adjectival quality (or transition), and a derived form (adjective or -nie participle) is used as modifying adjective or as apparent head of a NP in the absence of a regular noun. It is possible to divide this syntactic-semantic set of verbs into three formal subclasses based on the shape of the adjectival derivative. One set of verbs of adjectival quality form their adjectival derivative with the Partpl suffix -nte, which is also used with a number of nonadjectival verbs (§4.3.4). The other two sets take zero and -o, respectively (see following section). Many verbs of adjectival quality also form an Abstractive nominalization ending in y (§4.3.1). This is especially common with the stems which form their adjective in -o.

4.4.2 Adjectives as noun modifiers (suffix -o or zero) Verbs of adjectival quality can ordinarily be used as modifying adjectives in NPs, in which case they take a lexically specified form. Those which do not take the participle form (§4.3.4) either take an Adj ending -o, or take zero affix. We begin with the cases of -o in (78). (78)

Adjectival suffix -o gloss verb 'be light, soft' a. baan 'be aged' jeen kaan 'be sharp; be sweet' 'be near' maan 'be ugly' meet 'be distant' moor 'be difficult, expensive' b. sendu 'cut; be cut' dumbu 'be bitter' c. horon 'be hot, angry' koron 'be heavy' tin ~ tim 'become dry' koo yey 'be cold' bow 'be many, much' d. boon 'be pretty, nice, good'

adjectival form baan-o jeen-o kaan-o maan-o meer-o moor-o

send-o dumb-o honn-o konn-o tin-o koog-o yeen-o bobo (see §5.4.6) boyro

(78a) gives the CVVC stems, (78b) the bisyllabic stems ending in u. The derivations in (78c) involve phonological oddities. These formal irregularities in (78c) are mostly identical to those noted for the corresponding Abstr nominals (honn-, konn-, koog-, yeen-) (cf. §4.3.1), but I have not recorded a velar nasal in tin-o 'heavy'; compare (70c) in §4.3.1, above. The cases in (78d) involve phonologically obscure relations between verb and adjective, so we do not use morpheme breaks in the

4.4 Morphology of adjectives

73

adjective, boyTO may be historically metathesized from *bory-o, compare verb man 'be thin' and adjective meyra (<*mary-a). (79)

Suffixless derivation of adjective (from verb of adjectival quality) verb gloss adjectival form a. cirey 'be red' cirey korey 'be white' korey bibi 'be black' bibi kara 'be yellow' kara b. ciina 'be small, young, few' ciina beer 'be big, great, old' beer c. kuu 'be long, tall' kuku d. woroo 'be thick' woroo

(79a) shows that an adjectival form without the -o suffix is the dominant pattern for verbs of primary color qualities (79a). This is also the pattern for 'small' and for 'big' (79b). (ciino in the phrase moreyda ciino 'right now' might contain Adj -o, but the final vowel might alternatively reflect demonstrative *woo, see §4.2.4). In (79c), kuku 'long' has a reduplicative stem-shape. Contrast the Abstractive kuu 'length' given as (71a) in §4.3.2, above. (79d) may be a case where addition of Adj -o is phonetically vacuous since the stem already ends in oo.

4.4.3 Adjectives as NP heads with Absolute prefix iWhen the adjectival forms of §4.4.2 are used as apparent lexical heads of NPs (i.e. when they follow an empty noun slot), they additionally require an Absolute prefix. For modifying adjectives of the sort described in the preceding section, and for -nte participles when treated as adjectives (rather than as nouns), the prefix is /'-. See §4.5.1 for the more complex system of numerals, several of which have a-. The Absol prefix may be compared roughly to English one (as in α big one, two big ones), which likewise allows an adjective to occur in a NP without a true noun. Some examples of verbs of adjectival quality and their adjectival derivatives are given in (80). We include one verb (futu 'be bad') which adds Participle ending -nte to form the corresponding adjective (§4.3.4). (80)

Adjectives a. ni beer (koron, cirey, futu) 3Sg big (hot, red, bad) 'You(Sg) were big (hot, red, bad).' b. har beer (konn-o, cirey, futu-nte) di man big (hot, red, bad) Def 'the big (hot, red, bad) man' c. i-beer (i-konn-o, i-cirey, i-futu-nte) di Absol-big (-hot, -red, -bad) Def 'the big (hot, red, bad) one'

74 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation The Participle futu-nte in (80c) may also be treated as a noun and therefore can occur without Absol i-, as in futu-nte di 'the bad one'. The combination of 3Sg a or 3P1; (as possessor) with a following Absol adjective beginning in a- is somewhat awkward because of the vowel sequence. Allowing VV-Contraction (36) to apply would obliterate the distinction between 3Sg and 3P1, turning both a_^ i-konn-o di 'his hot one' and £ i-konn-o di 'their hot one' into [i:kon;odi]. In such cases, informants generally insisted on including the overt Possessive postposition wane, hence a wane^ i-konn-o di and / wane^ i-konn-o di, respectively. The same applies to numerals with Absol i- (§4.5.1).

4.5 Quantificational adjectives 4.5.1 Modifying and Absolute forms of simple numerals Numeral stems are not used as verbs. They are commonly used as modifying adjectives, following a head noun (and any descriptive adjectives). They may also be used as NP heads, for example in counting, in which case some of them require an overt Absolute prefix. As modifiers or as NP heads, they may be followed by Def di and postpositions. The simple numerals are given in (81). For ordinals, see §4.3.4. (81)

Numerals gloss One' 'which?' 'two' 'three' 'four' 'five' 'six' 'seven' 'eight' 'nine' 'ten' 'twenty' 'thirty' 'hundred' 'thousand'

modifying Adj foo " hirjka hinja iaaci guu iddu iiye yaaha yagga woy (~wey) wararjka waranja jorjgu-jarjgu jember

Absolute prefix a-foo One' /-/bo 'which (one)?' aaaazero zero zero zero azero zero zero zero

For the conditions under which numerals co-occur with PI yo, see §5.4.1. With preceding woo cinne 'that sort' we get quantified expressions like woo oinne hirjka 'two like that, two of that type'. The forms for 'twenty' and 'thirty', though not synchronically analysable, share an onset wara..., and end with the final segments of 'two' and 'three', respectively. For

4.5 Quantificational adjectives

75

'thirty' through 'ninety', and for numerals like 'thirteen' and 'fifty-seven', see the following section. a- is the regular nonzero Absol prefix in true numerals, versus i- with ordinary adjectives: a-woy 'ten'. Note that foo forms a-foo as numeral One', but i-foo as interrogative 'which (one)?'. The only other alternation of Absolute a- and i- in Timbuktu is a-kul 'all (of it)' versus i-kul 'all (of them)' (discussed in detail in §5.4.3). In expressions like 'two or three Xs' for some noun X, the first numeral is non-absolute since it is directly attached to the modified noun X, but the second numeral has the Absol prefix. It seems best to bracket such phrases as in (82). (82)

[keydiya hiqka] [wet-season two] 'two or three wet seasons'

[wala [or

a-hinja] Absol-three]

Several numerals have zero Absol prefix; alternatively, we could say that they do not allow this prefix. The numerals from One' to 'ten' which have no overt Absol prefix are '6, 7, 8, 9'. These happen to be the numerals with stem-initial i or y, so there is a possible phonological characterization of this set, but the fact that these four constitute a consecutive sequence in counting may also be significant. Other numerals lacking an overt Absol prefix are 'hundred' and 'thousand', but in these cases the explanation may be that they are syntactic nouns rather than adjective-like numerals. Like ordinary nouns, 'hundred' and 'thousand' are themselves commonly quantified over ('five hundred', 'three thousand'). Finally, the suppletive ordinal lawal 'first' does not take an overt Absol prefix: lawal di 'the first one'. Very large numbers are expressed using French terms (million 'million', milliard 'billion, thousand million'). In §4.4.3 we noted that 3Sg a and 3P1 i as possessors are phonologically awkward before ordinary adjectives beginning with Absol a-. The same awkwardness is observed when these pronouns occur as possessors before numerals (e.g., ordinals) beginning with Absol a -. Once again, the usual pattern is to include Poss wane, as in a wane^ a-hirjka-nte di 'her second one', or a "3F' (Full third person) pronoun as possessor, as mgga^a-hiqka-nte d/(same gloss). There is no difficulty with other pronouns, hence ay a-hiijka-nte di 'my second one'. boro 'person* is sometimes used as a kind of numeral classifier between a quantified noun and a numeral. See §5.4.8 for some of the nuances when the quantified element is a pronoun.

4.5.2 Compound numerals Multiples of ten, from 'forty' to 'ninety', are constructed by compounding woy 'ten' and a following numeral from 'four' to 'nine', with irregular phonological contractions in the cases of '50', '60', and '70' to shorten final long vowels or to reduce bulky consonant clusters: woy-taaci 'forty', woy-gu 'fifty', woy-du 'sixty', woy-ye 'seventy', woy-yaaha 'eighty', and woy-yaaga 'ninety'. Note in particular that gnu

76 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation 'five' loses its vowel length in woy-gu 'fifty', even in combinations like woy-gu di 'the fifty' where vowel length (if present) would be clearly audible. These combinations could be analysed as 'four tens', etc. Although woy in the sense 'ten' takes the Absol prefix (a-woy) where syntactically appropriate, the larger multiples such as woy-taaci do not, and so are used without modification as heads of NPs (and in counting). Regular (unconnected) numeral phrases are used for hundreds (jo g ) and thousands (jember): jorjgu hinja 'three hundred', jember guu 'five thousand'. One hundred' is usually just jorjgu, while One thousand' is always jember foo including the numeral One'. The French loan milyo 'million' has the same pattern: milyö foo One million'. Compound numerals from 'eleven' to 'nineteen' are expressed as woy^cindi-... 'tenremainder-...' plus the uncontracted single-digit numeral, e.g., woy^cindi-guu 'fifteen' and woy^cindi-iiye'seventeen'. Note that here guu 'five' preserves its long vowel. In Timbuktu, the y of woy- regularly assimilates to the following palatoalveolar to give [tif] (§3.6.3). The Absol prefix is used where appropriate in such combinations: a-woy^cindi-guu 'fifteen (of them)'. The same kind of compound with cindi 'remain' as linker is used for compound numerals involving a multiple of ten plus a single digit, e.g., waraqka-cindi-yaaha 'twenty-eight' and [woy-gu]-oindi-hirjka'fifty-tv/o\ Combinations involving two or more parts (thousands, hundreds, 1-99) stitch the parts together with nda 'and, with' (§5.11). For example, '1,500 riyals' is expressed as (83). (83)

allaara riyal

[[jember [[thousand

foo] one]

nda and

[jorjgu [hundred

guu]] five]]

4.5.3 Other quantificational modifiers For predications of existence (There is an X'), see §7.2. Within a NP, there is no pure existential quantifier, but foo One' sometimes approaches it. For this and other relevant constructions see §5.4.2. The morpheme kul is often used as a kind of universal quantifier. It occurs in a wide range of syntactic positions, both within NPs and clause-finally. See §5.4.3 for its role as quantifier within NPs, and §9.5.10 for its clause-final uses. Numerals may be reduplicated, as in a-foo-foo One by one, one each' and a-higka-hirjka 'two by two, two each'. As heads of NP, as in these two examples, the Absol prefix is used once and is not repeated before the repeat occurrence of the numeral. These reduplicated numerals generally have distributive function (§5.4.4). When a set is divided into two or more complementary subsets of one or more individuals, to which different predications are applied ('Some stayed here, the others left'), KCh generally uses symmetrical segments of the general type 'some ones ... , some ones ...' or 'the one ... , the one ..." See §5.4.5 for details. The primary generalized quantifiers are ciina 'few, infrequent, rare' and bobo 'many, much' (corresponding to intransitive verbs oiina and bow). Formally, these are ordinary adjectives like those treated in §4.4. For details on usage, see §5.4.6.

4.6 Nominal compounds

77

4.6 Nominal compounds 4.6. l N-N (tight) and NP-N (loose) compounds We speak of the first component as the "(compound) initial" and of the following component as the "(compound) final." In compounds involving two nouns, the final is ordinarily the lexical head and the initial is a modifier. Some specialized finals may not fit this pattern. Highly lexicalized compounds normally take the form N,-N2 with no intervening morphemes. An example is maale-banna 'apprentice' (literally 'master-slave', construable as 'slave of the master'). We may refer to these as "tight" compounds. Such a compound functions syntactically as a noun stem. On the other hand, in "loose" compounds the initial and final are more autonomous, and the initial may be followed by its own definite or plural marking where semantically appropriate. A possessor preceding a loose compound may have broad scope over the entire compound NP or narrow scope over the initial only. Loose compounds might themselves be analysed as possessive constructions in which the Poss postposition wane is omitted. An example is (84). (84)

Iyer alhawa di [1P1 passion Def 'the focus of our desire'

kul] all]

tin-ey weight

di Def

Here the initial is the entire NP yer alhawa di kul, which includes a pronominal possessor, Def di, and a quantifier in addition to the noun stem. The compound final tin-ey is the lexical head of the overall combination and takes its own Def marking.

4.6.2 'Mother' and 'child' compounds (-naa, -ije) Among the stems which occur frequently as compound finals, the pair -naa 'mother' and -ije 'child' are especially common. In my data, -naa and -ije tend to form compounds with nonoverlapping sets of stems, except when used in their literal kinship senses (on which see §4.6.6.). Consider an uncompounded stem X, used independently with a basic lexical sense. If there is a compound X-naa (literally 'mother of X'), the sense is 'a larger whole of which X is a part'. This is characteristic of terms for certain flora spp. which have conspicuous fruits, nuts, or similar appendages. The uncompounded stem X denotes this appendage (collectively), or denotes the species in a general way, while the compound X-naa specifically denotes an entire plant, as in (85a). For reference we give the senses with -ije 'child' as well.

78 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation (85)

Compounds with -naa 'mother' stem gloss (plain) a. baani 'pods of an acacia sp.' booso 'tamarind fruits' daarey 'jujube fruits' gorboy 'native dates (fruit)' koo 'baobab fruits' sebe 'palm tree' b. duijguri 'beans'

with -naa 'acacia sp. (tree)' 'tamarind tree' 'jujube tree' 'native date tree' 'baobab tree' 'palm tree' 'bean plant'

with -He 'acacia seed' 'tamarind seed' 'jujube (fruit)' 'date (fruit)' 'baobab seed' 'palm nut' 'seed (of bean)'

The compound durjguri-naa in (85b) also has a humorous secondary meaning, 'pregnant woman'. In these examples, the parallel compound with -ije is not in regular use to denote the fruit, since the uncompounded stem already denotes this. However, -ye forms can be pressed into service to denote grains or other units within the fruits. Phonology: the aa in X-naa is heard most clearly as a long vowel when the compound is followed by Def di, otherwise it is normally shortened to surface [a] (§3.7.9). Stems like daarey and gorboy, ending in y, undergo assimilation of the y to the following π (§3.6.3), hence daarevjnaa, pronounced [da:reji:a(0]· For an uncompounded stem X, if there is a compound X-ije (literally 'child of X'), the sense is 'a smaller entity associated with X'. If X denotes a physical object, X-ije denotes a smaller object physically associated with it (86a), or a small X (86b). If X denotes a collectivity, mass, location, or abstraction, X-ije denotes an individual (86c). The cases in (86d) are slightly more complex but are mostly along the same lines. (86)

Compounds with -ije 'child' gloss (plain) with -naa with -ije stem 'well (water)' — 'water recipient (for well)' a. baasu fufu-tondi 'grinding stones' 'grindstone' 'small grindstone' 'lock, key' — kankow 'key' waif a 'rifle' — 'bullet' — torjgotoqgo 'bow' 'arrow' 'sauce' — 'cumin (spice)' maafe dabur 'fishline with hooks'— 'fishhook' 'brick' — 'piece of brick' b. ferey 'gift by returning traveler' 'travel, walk' — c. dira 'prisoner' kasa 'jail' — 'town' — 'townsperson, citizen' koyra 'war; army' — 'soldier' warjgu 'insect sp. (after rain)' 'rain' — baana d. duma 'sow (seeds)' — 'kidney' gooro 'kola tree or nut' 'kola tree' 'kola nut' 'capitaine (fish sp.)' ham 'meat' (<*'fish)' — 'finger (rare)' — 'finger' (see §3.8.3) kobe 'baking dish' — 'burnt residue in pots' kusu 'rice plants (crop)' 'rice (plant)' 'shelled rice' moo 'Koranic school pupil' 'talisman' — tira

4.6 Nominal compounds

79

The noun alhoor 'limestone' (used as a construction material) occurred in natural texts with both of these compound finals, alhoor-naa denoted a large limestone block found in nature, which had to be cut up into individual brick-sized blocks, each of which is an alhoor-ije. Phonology: -ije is realized as -jje after a mid-height or low vowel {e ο a}. It contracts with preceding high vowel (u i} to give [i:d$e]. For examples and a possible analysis, see §3.8.3. For irregular kobo-jje~ kobe-eje 'finger' and hajje 'trivial thing; whatchamacallit?', see the end of §3.8.3.

4.6.3 'Male' and 'female' compounds (-Aar, -woy) There is no grammatical gender in KCh, and many nouns denoting humans are not lexically specified for sex. To make this specification, bar 'man, male' or woy 'woman, female' may be added as a compound final. Examples: ije-har 'son, boy' and ije-woy 'daughter, girl', from ije 'child'. The same compound finals are also readily used to distinguish male from female animals. In other Songhay languages, cognates of har and woy are additionally used to differentiate similar plant species denoted by the same basic term, the 'male' form generally being larger or more elongated than the 'female' form. I have not noticed this usage in KCh, though perhaps fieldwork among villagers with a strong interest in flora would produce a few examples.

4.6.4 Nominals of essential nature (-ferey) As a noun, ferey denotes the area immediately outside a house. As a compound final (or derivational suffix), X-ferey is usually translatable as 'X-hood' or 'X-ness'. A sample of the forms is given in (87). (87)

Nominals of essential nature in -ferey compound gloss a. sorlro-ferey 'Bozo-hood; Bozo nation' b. albanna-terey 'house-building, masonry' c. borcin-terey 'nobility, high class' kokoy-terey 'chiefhood, political authority' talka-terey 'poverty' d. har^terey 'manhood' baba-jjo-terey 'patrilineal kinship' taawo-terey 'youth, newness' e. alhaasidi-terey 'self-centeredness' alwaajib-terey 'sense of duty' lesel-terey 'tradition' f. diya-terey 'message [n.]; send as messenger [tr.]' seede-terey 'bear witness, testify'

80 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation The first few examples involve ethnic groups (87a), occupations (87b), socioeconomic statuses (87c), and biological and kinship statuses (87d). In these cases, the "X" noun, used by itself, denotes a person of the relevant type ('Bozo person', 'mason', 'noble', man'), and -terey generalizes this to the respective larger class. Like e.g. English nobility, the KCh compounds can denote either the idealized essential nature of this class (skill in masonry, the proper exercise of noble class, the ideal emotional attachments and sense of obligation in kinship relations), or the set of members of the larger class ('His nobility impresses me' vs. 'The nobility oppose any concessions to the serfs'). The essential-nature reading seems semantically primary. In (87e), we get more general abstractions that are not prescriptively connected with prior statuses, alhaasidi 'self-centered person' denotes a person of the relevant type, but alwaajib means Obligatory' and leselmeans 'authentic'. In (87f) we have a couple of special cases where the compound can or must be used as a verb. These are probably secondary verbalizations of older nominal compounds. Compare the "verbal" use of haya foo '(do) anything' discussed in §7.1.5. In (88), -terey appears to function semantically as a suffix to a possessed noun 'your wife': (88)

a hun [ni wande-terey] 3SgS leave [2Sg wife-hood] 'She ceased being your wife.'

4.6.5 Compounds with -jeqey 'lack of The noun -jerjey is normally used only as a compound final meaning 'lack of X' where X is the compound initial. It generally denotes serious and prolonged conditions (ecological, economic, etc.). Examples are njerfii-jeqey 'lack of money, poverty, economic crisis' and hari-jeqey 'lack of water, aridity, drought'. Historically, this is probably an *-ey nominalization from the verb jen 'fail (to ...)', though the connection is synchronically questionable, jerjey can also now be used as a verb meaning 'suffer poverty'; this is probably a secondary deverbal formation.

4.6.6 Semi-segmentable and compound kin terms The kinship terminology is described in §11.5. Here we briefly point out that some kin terms are morphologically composite. There are two pairs of forms involving har 'man' and woy 'woman' (cf. §4.6.3) plus a frozen ending *-ce. These are shown in (89). (89)

form harme woyme b. harce wo££e (<*woy-ce) a.

gloss 'brother' 'sister' '(woman's) male suitor' '(woman's) co-wife'

4.6 Nominal compounds

81

We could gloss *-me here as 'sibling' and *-ce approximately as '(sexual) rival'. Other compound kin terms are more transparent, -ije 'child' (cf. §4.6.2) occurs in a number of kinship expressions like naa-jje 'blood relative' (naa 'mother'), baba-jje 'respected male rival' (baba 'father'), and fafa-jje 'close relative' (fafa 'breast', hence literally 'breast-mate'). The adjectives beer 'big' and keyna 'small' occur with parental terms to produce expressions denoting parallel uncles and aunts, specified for seniority relative to the father or mother, as in baa-beer 'big father' (=father's elder brother) and naa-keyna 'little mother' (=mother's younger sister).

4.6.7 Verb-noun compounds (-kasine, -noijgu) Compounds consisting of a verb and a following noun stem are rare, especially if we factor out cases where the "verb" could be interpreted as a zero-derived nominalization (§4.3.2). However, there are three attested nominal compounds whose second member is -kasine 'mate, companion' and whose first member appears to be a true verb (90). -kasine is used only as a compound final, cf. cere 'mate, peer, friend' and other lexical choices for the simple noun. (90)

compound bey-kasine haqga-kasine maraa-kasine

gloss 'acquaintance, friend' 'follower, pal' 'fellow resident, companion'

gloss of initial 'know' 'follow' 'assemble'

None of the compound initials is recorded independently in nominal function (for bey the Abstr nominal is bey-rey). The noun noqgu 'place' can be used as a compound final with a broad range of initials. (KS uses -doo 'place' in similar compounds.) In (91a), the initial is clearly a noun, compare the related verbs waafaku 'agree' and waa 'defecate'. However, the initials in (91b) are identical to intransitive or transitive verb stems, and can be construed as true verbs or in some cases possibly as zero-derived nominalizations. (91)

compound a. waafak-oy-noqgu wiri-norjgu b. kani-norjgu jiqgar-noqgu koosu-noijgu goy-noijgu

gloss 'agreement place' 'excrement plac' 'sleeping place' 'praying place' 'abattoir' 'workplace'

gloss of initial 'agreement' 'excrement' 'lie down (to sleep)' 'pray; prayer' 'slaughter' 'work' [verb or noun]

The noun cere 'friend' is used (like English each other) in reciprocal constructions ('help friend' = 'help each other'). The combination of cere (in direct object function) and a preceding verb can also be treated as a nominalized compound ('help friend' = 'mutual assistance'). For examples see the end of §10.2.6.

82 4 Nouns, pronouns, and nominal derivation 4.6.8 Noun-verb compounds with verb modifying noun In §6.3.1 we give examples of [noun-verb] compounds where the noun is an incorporated direct object or other complement, along with suffixal or zero-derived nominalizations of such compounds. There is one other [noun-verb] type where the verb is a kind of modifier, like a participle or relative clause. This is seen in the pair har-hiiji 'married man' and woy-hiiji'married woman'. The initials are bar 'man' and woy 'woman', and the final is hiiji 'marry', cf. hiije ~ hiijey 'marriage'.

4.6.9 Archaic diminutives The old Diminutive suffix *-iya is preserved only vestigially in a few forms like bundiye 'brochette' (bundu 'stick, wood') and huriya 'knife' (now a dialectal variant of huri 'knife'), plus a few flora-fauna terms like takiriya 'firefinch'.

4.7 Reduplication of noun and adjective stems Reduplication is not a common process with nouns. In the following examples, the sense of the unreduplicated stem is given after the "<" symbol. As with verbs (§6.4), bisyllabic stems are favored. In one set of forms, the reduplication has clear distributive value: oinne-dinne 'co-tribesmen' <'peer', guuru-guuru 'spare auto parts' <'(piece of) metal', jiibt-jiibi 'dirty spots' <'dirt', jombu-jombu 'fragments, debris' <'broken-up grains', tombi-tombi 'spots, stains' <'spot'. In two cases, reduplication is used as an ad hoc derivational device defining one entity in terms of a better-known one: kooro-kooro 'hooked device for retrieving bucket fallen into well'
Chapter 5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

5.1 Overview In the previous chapter we introduced the morphemic material of NPs and examined processes of noun-stem formation. In the present chapter we focus on the larger NP syntax and on the analysis of relevant grammatical categories. The simplest NPs are personal pronouns (§4.A), which take no further marking for definiteness or plurality. In this chapter, however, we are concerned chiefly with "full NPs" headed by a lexical noun, or by another stem capable of functioning as NP head. The latter set includes adjectives or numerals converted into NP heads by means of the Absolute prefix a- or i- (§4.4.3, §4.5.1), demonstrative pronoun woo, and possessive phrases with postposition wane. A "full NP" is any NP not consisting of a personal pronoun. The maximal structure of an NP (or PP), excluding relative clause modification, is that shown in (92). (92)

{ coreNP } post-core elements possessor - N - Adj - Num - Dem - Def - PI - kul - DF - Postp

The "core" of a full NP consists of the lexical information necessary to specify the denoted referent. This core NP is syntactically equivalent to a personal pronoun. Either the core of a full NP, or a personal pronoun, may be followed by any of the post-core elements: kul 'all'; a DF (discourse-functional) morpheme such as Top[ic] or Emph[atic] (also Only' or 'also'); or a postposition. The position of kul is more variable than indicated in (92), and it can follow DF morphemes under some conditions. If a postposition is present, the entire phrase is a PP (postpositional phrase). The lexical head is the noun in the second position of (92). It is preceded by a possessor NP, which itself contains an NP. The head N may be followed by a modifying adjective, a numeral, the demonstrative pronoun woo 'this, that', Def di, and PI yo. All the positions except the noun are optional. Even the noun may be omitted if there is another element present that is capable of carrying the basic information (possessor, adjective, numeral, or demonstrative). When a possessor NP, adjective, or numeral functions as head of the NP in the absence of N, certain morphological restrictions and adjustments apply (§5.2.3, §5.3.1, §5.4.1). A few examples of NPs headed by nouns or demonstrative woo are given in (93). Post-core elements are included in the NP with universal quantifier (93d) and in the PPs (93e-f), one of which (93f) has a DF morpheme before the postposition.

84 (93)

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax Noun Phrases and Postpositional Phrases Noun Phrases a. [ay wane] huu di [ISg Poss] house Def 'my house' b. bor bibi hiqka woo di person black two Dem Def 'those two black men* c. woy di yo kul se woman Def PI all Dat 'for all the women' d. woo yo ta kul Dem PI Top all 'all of those' Postpositional Phrases e. bar di yo se man Def PI Dat 'for the men' f. a bom o lawal di nin ra 3Sg head first Def only Loc 'in its first part only'

structure [Poss] N Def

N Adj Num Dem Def

Ν Def PI fcu/Postp

Dem PI Top kul

structure Ν Def PI Postp

Poss N Adj Def only Postp

5.2 Possessives 5.2.1 Possessor NPs with and without wane A possessive NP has the form [[NP (wane)] N ...], where N is the possessed noun (and hence the lexical head of the larger NP). The possessor NP (which can be a simple pronoun or a multi-word NP) can be followed by the Possessive postposition wane (§5.9.3). Examples in (94). (94)

a.

b.

c.

a wane gaabi di 3Sg Poss strength Def 'its power' [isa here woo yo wane] fari di yo [river around Dem PI Poss] field Def PI 'fields of (=in) those river areas' [alhoor di daa wane] ciini di [limestone Def Emph Poss] word Def 'words of (=about) limestone*

yo PI

However, wane is optional and may be omitted in each of (94a-c). Omission of wane in (94a) causes no interpretive problems since the 3Sg pronoun in a gaabi di can only be construed as possessive; likewise, ISg ay in (95a) must be possessive.

5.2 Possessives

85

When the possessor is a full noun-headed NP, omission of wane results in the juxtaposition of two NPs, so possession may be indistinguishable from loose compounding (§4.6.5). However, possessive and compounding readings are not always semantically distinct, and if the possessed noun is semantically inalienable ('mother', 'belly') the construction can safely be read as possessive, as with 'mother' in (95b).

(95)

a.

b.

ay^ naa ISg mother 'my mother' [har di yo] [man Def PI] 'the men's mother'

naa mother

di Def

Note that the possessor and possessed NPs are independently marked for definiteness and for grammatical number both in (94b-c) with wane and in (95b) without it. When the possessed "noun" is really a numeral or adjective beginning in Absolute i- or a-, and the possessor is 3Sg a or 3P1 i, omission of wane is uncommon. The strong preference for overt wane in this combination can be viewed as a device to avoid a VV sequence whose contraction would obliterate categorial information. Thus a wane^ i boyro di 'its best' (i.e., 'the best thing for it') rather than ?#a i-boyro di. There is no problem with pronominal possessors ending in consonants: yer a-woy Our ten'.

5.2.2 Recursive possession Recursion occurs when the first-order possessor NP itself contains a (second-order) possessor. A simple example is (96). (96)

[[ay] baaba [[ISg] father 'my father's house'

wane] Poss]

huu house

di Def

When cumbersome full NPs are involved, such constructions become difficult to process, but there is no syntactic restriction on them, as seen in (97). (97)

a.

b.

c.

[[har di wane] huu di [[man Def Poss] house Def 'the upstairs of the man's house' [[war wane] faaba-öere [[2P1 Poss] help-friend 'the motive of your mutual help' [[qgi-ye ta] tun di] [[3P1F Top] arising Def] 'the time of their arising'

wane] sooro di Poss] upstairs Def di] addeliil Def] motive alwakati time

di Def di Def

86 5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax These examples show various combinations of presence or absence of postposition wane. We get wane after both possessors in (97a), after the rightmost only in (96), after the leftmost only in (97b), and after neither in (97c). 5.2.3 Possessors as apparent heads of the higher NP In the English sentence My dog ran away but John's is still here, the possessor John's appears to function as head of the higher NP and denotes John's dog. Alternatively, we could say that the head noun is expressed by zero (John's 0 is...). The same pattern occurs in KCh. In this case, the postposition wane is obligatory. In the ordinary definite case, wane is directly followed by Def di, a combination which is irregularly realized as wan di (§3.8.4). Examples in (98), with the position of the unexpressed head noun marked by 0.

(98)

[ay wan] [ISg Poss] 'mine(Pl)' b. [bar di [man Def 'for the men's'

a.

0 0

di yo Def PI

yo PI

wan] Poss]

0 0

di se Def Dat

It is possible, but fairly unusual, to get wane in indefinite contexts without Def di, as in (99). (99)

yer fari hay kul kaa ci [[moo ta wane] 1P1S grow thing all Rel be [[rice Top Poss] 'We have planted everything which is (any kind) of rice.'

0] 0]

More freely: 'We have planted every variety of rice.' 5.2.4 Inalienable possession In general there is no special morphosyntax of inalienable possession (e.g. body parts, kin terms), except insofar as some types of nouns are normally possessed. However, the noun moy 'namesake' (i.e., anyone with the same personal name), which is always possessed, does have the unusual feature of avoiding Def di, hence ay moy 'my namesake', plural ay moy yo (not#ay moy dior#ay moy di yo).

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87

5.3 Adjectives 5.3.1 Syntax of simple adjectives We can define "adjective" syntactically as an element which may occur immediately after a lexical noun (as head of NP), preceding a numeral if the latter is present. Most of the common adjectives are derived from intransitive verbs of adjectival quality (§4.4.1), for example jeen 'be aged', Adj[ective] form jeen-o. Adj suffix -o is very common in such adjective forms but there is some lexical variation (§4.4.2). Another class of syntactic adjectives are the -nte ordinals (derived from numerals) and participles (derived from various types of verb, and rarely from nouns), § 4.3.4. Examples are hirjka-nte 'second', albarka-nte 'powerful', and tey-nte 'wet'. Examples of adjectives (including participles), with following numeral, are in (100). (100)

a.

b.

har jeen-o man old-Adj 'two old men'

derbe

hiqka two

tey-nte

taaci

di

boubou wet-Partpl four Def 'the four wet boubous (men's outer garments)' If an adjective is present but the head noun is absent, the adjective can be said to function as the head of the NP. In this case, an Absolute prefix is added; this is, arguably, a dummy element which fills an otherwise vacant "noun" slot. The Absol prefix is /- (§4.4.3), as in (101). (101)

a.

b.

i-jeen-o di Absol-old-Adj Def 'the old one' i-tey-nte taaci Absol-wet-Partpl four 'the four wet ones'

di Def

In these respects, adjectives are similar morphologically and syntactically to numerals, though numerals take a different Absol prefix, either a- or zero (§4.5.1). The quantifying adjectives bobo 'much, many' and ciina 'few' are morphologically indistinguishable from ordinary adjectives.

5.3.2 Sequences of adjectives Some examples of adjective sequences are given in (102). The literal glosses retain the word order of the original.

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

(102) a. b. c. d. e. f.

transcription cirow bibi beer hay si woroo futu-nte bar keyna woroo huri kaan-o beer tuuri-naa beer kokom-te derbe ciina tey-nte

literal gloss 'bird black big' 'dog fat vicious' 'man small fat' 'knife sharp big' 'tree big shaken' 'shirt little wet'

Judging from the variable location of the size adjectives beer 'big', keyna 'small', and ciina 'small', it does not appear that the order of adjectives is rigidly grammaticalized.

5.4 Numerals and other quantifiers 5.4.1 Simple numeral phrases When a numeral modifies a preceding noun, the numeral does not take an Absolute prefix. When the numeral acts as quasi-head of the NP, the common noun being absent, the numeral must take its regular Absol prefix, which is a- or zero depending on the numeral (§4.5.1). Examples with hirjka 'two' are in (103). (103)

a. b. c.

woy hirjka a-hirjka a-hiqka di

'two women' 'two (of them)' 'the two (=both)'

Reduplicated numerals like hiqka-hirjka 'two each' (§5.4.4) occupy the same syntactic positions as the corresponding simple numeral, and no inflectional morphemes may intervene between the two parts of the reduplication. PI yo is not directly added to (nonsingular) numerals in their normal sense. However, if Def di intervenes, PI yo is optionally added: a-guu kaa 'five came', but a-guu di yo kaa 'the five came'. PI yo may be added directly to a numeral in the more complex sense 'sets of X individuals', where X is the numeral. Thus a-guu yo means not 'five', rather 'fivesomes (quintets, groups of five)'. The most common case is with (a-)foo One', where no ambiguity is possible: (a-)foo yo 'some (ones), a few', as in (104). (104)

[saa foo yo] yer o kani^ i se hawey, [time one PI] 1P1S Impf sleep 3P1 Dat foodlessly, hal rjgi-ye ta ma hin^ ka qaa so 3P1F Top Subju can Inf eat 'Sometimes, we sleep on an empty stomach for them, so they may be able to eat.'

For ordinal numerals, see §4.3.4.

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5.4.2 Existential quantification Existential quantifification is generally associated with the initial introduction of a referent into a discourse. This may be accomplished either by an overt predication of existence or location ('There was a dog'), or by using an indefinite NP in a larger sentence (Ά dog was sitting on the lawn,' or Ί saw a dog on the lawn'). For predications of existence, see §7.1.2-3. Within a NP, KCh has no special form specifically for existential quantification, corresponding to the English indefinite article (a dog), the bare plural (dogs) for count nouns, the bare singular for mass nouns (water), or existential some (some dogs, some water). The numeral foo One' can sometimes be translated as an English singular indefinite article, viz., when a new singular discourse referent is introduced with no special focus on its number. Therefore the NP boro foo can be rendered as either One person' or 'a person'. However, when a new referent is introduced, the foo is merely optional, and it always seems to have more of its numerical value than does English a(n). Moreover, foo cannot normally be used with a mass noun. See the examples in (105). (105)

a. b.

ay guna boro ISgS see person Ί saw a person.' ay guna hari ISgS see water Ί saw (#a) water.'

(foo) (one) (#foo) (#one)

The best case for an existential reading of foo is in the scope of a simple negative. Here the compositional sense is of the type 'not (even) one X', which effectively denies the existence of any denoted entity, as in (106). (106)

ma na bana [haya foo] 2SgS Neg pay [thing one] 'You(Sg) didn't pay (=haven't paid) anything.'

(106) means, in quasi-logical notation, 'There is not (even) one χ such that χ is a thing and you paid x.' For more on interactions between foo and negation, see §9.3.3. Some examples of reduplication and parallelism discussed in §5.4.4 also have existential implications, though no such construction is purely existential. 5.4.3 Universal quantification (kul 'all') The only serious candidate for universal quantifier ('all, every') is kul (
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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

We are here concerned with kul as a quantificational adjective meaning 'all, every, each, both'. A number of constructions need to be distinguished. First, kul may combine with a bare count noun in the distributive sense 'every, each'. This is most typical of its combinations with a set of relatively abstract generic nouns like 'time', 'place', 'person', and 'thing'. Examples are saa kul 'every time, any time, whenever' and bor(o) kul 'every person, anyone, whomever'. Note the absence of Def di and of PI yohere. A following relative clause, however, is fine: saa kul kaa ... 'any time that ...' (§8.3.6). This construction differs clearly from another pattern where kul is superimposed on an NP already specified for definiteness and number (singular for mass or collective nouns, plural for countable nouns). Here the kul merely emphasizes that the NP it binds is denotatively maximized. Examples are in (107). The appropriate gloss here is 'all' rather than 'every, each'. Note that in (107b) the plural subject with kul binds a plural (not singular) SRefl pronoun functioning as possessor of the direct object, just as it would if kul were absent. (107)

a.

b.

ni_^ alhawa di kul 2Sg passion Def all 'all of your passion (=as much as you want)' [boro di yo kul] dam [rjgi-yo caaku di yojbeene [person Def PI all] put [SReflPl sack Def PI} above 'All the people put their sacks up above.'

Intermediate between the bare-noun type saa kul and the type with full NP seen in (107a-b) is one where the noun stem bound by kul takes Def di but cannot take PI yo. This type is reliably distinguishable from the type (107a-b) only with countable nouns. An example is (108). (108)

tuuri sii tree kind 'every kind of tree'

di Def

kul all

This construction is regular with sii 'type'. Although the phrase in (108) is used in precisely the same contexts as English all kinds of trees, in Songhay it is a distributive and its kul is best glossed 'every' rather than 'all*. Another pattern with more emphatically distributive meaning involves adding kul to a noun already quantified by the numeral foo One' or its distributive reduplication foo-foo One by one'. Examples are in (109). (109)

a.

b.

[[jere foo] kul] a-taaci [[side one] all] Absol-four '(on) each side, (there are) four' [[[yer kuna] a-foo-foo] kul] go jisi qgu caaku di nee [[[1P1 Loc] Absol-one-one] all] Impf put SReflSgsack Def here 'Each one of us will put his (or her) sack down here.'

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91

It is clear that kul here has scope over the already quantified inner NP. Compare English every single side. Note that in (109b) the subject NP is treated syntactically as singular, and therefore binds a singular (not plural) 3Refl pronoun later in the sentence. In (109b), yer kuna (literally 'in us') is partitive in function (§5.4.10). When kul 'all, every' is used as (apparent) NP head in the absence of a real noun, it is expressed phonetically as singular [akul] or as plural [ikul]. There are two possible ways to analyse (and transcribe) these forms. First, we could take the initial vowels as special cases of the Absolute prefix, which is prefixed to adjectives and numerals when they function as NP heads, the usual form being i- before ordinary adjectives and abefore numerals (§4.4.3, §4.5.1). We would then have to specify that, before kul, we get a unique number differentiation of the Absol not found with adjectives or numerals. The transcriptions would be a-kul and i-kul. This is the system we will actually use in transcriptions. We will gloss a- as AbsolSg and i- as AbsolPl in these combinations, instead of just as Absol as elsewhere. Examples in (110). (110)

a.

a-kul ο baa-baa AbsolSg-all Impf Rdp-break 'All of it will break' (= 'It will all break') b. no-o soo i-kul 2SgS-Impf pour AbsolPl-all 'You(Sg) will pour (tea) for all of them.'

se Dat

The alternative would be to take the forms as a kul and i kul, i.e., as ordinary 3Sg a and 3P1 / pronouns, followed by kul. These would then be parallel to combinations like yer kul 'we all', war kul 'you all', etc. Since 3Sg a and 3P1 / are elsewhere replaced by 3SgF rjga and 3P1F rjgi-yo when followed by an attached particle or modifier (e.g. rjga woo with a demonstrative), the fact that the quantified forms here have a and i instead of "3F* counterparts would force us to interpret a kul and / kul as possessives ('his or her allness', 'their allness') to save the analysis. This would be awkward but not beyond the pale. This possessive analysis would also explain why the a and / do not take the forms 3SgO ga and 3P1O gi ~ ji when directly following a verb in object function. Contrast 3SgO ga in (11 la) with a kul (not #ga kul) in (11 Ib).

(111)

ay rjaa ga ISgS eat 3SgO Ί ate it' b. ay rjaa [a kul ISgS eat [3Sg all 'late all (of it).'

a.

(di)J (Def)]

Having noted this possessive reading as an analytical option, we will not use it hereafter in our glossing of examples, preferring the Absolute analysis as in (110). Combinations of quantificational Au/with negation are discussed in §9.3.3.

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

5.4.4 Distributive reduplication of numerals To indicate distributivity of individual entities, or of same-number sets of entities, the corresponding numeral is reduplicated. When the numeral functions as NP head, there is only a single occurrence of the Absolute prefix, as in a-hirjka-hirjka 'two each, two at a time'. The most common context for distributives is in specifying unit prices for commodities. The distributive numeral often functions as an adverbial modifier, without an overt postposition, as in (112). (112)

no-o neere ga^ a se, allaara hirjka-hiijka 2SgS-Impf sell 3SgO 3Sg Dat, riyal t wo-two 'You sell it to him (for) at two riyals (=10 CFA).'

Examples of absolute forms are a-hiqka-hirjka '(for) two (riyals each)' and waraqka-waraijka '(for) twenty riyals (each)'. The textual example (112) continued as (113). (113)

... wala allaara hinja, wala allaara hiqka nda jere, ... or riyal three, or riyal two with part, a si bisa woo 3SgS ImpfNeg pass Dem '... or three riyals, or two riyals and a fraction, it won't be more than that.'

Here the speaker could have said allaara hinja-hinja '(for) three riyals (each)', but the context was already clear. Compound numerical expressions like hiqka nda jere 'two and a fraction* do not lend themselves to reduplication. As these examples suggest, reduplicated distributive numeral phrases are used in sentences where members of one set are associated with subsets (individuals, pairs, triples, or whatever) of a second set. For example, each member of the set of mangoes is associated with two riyals (the unit price). In the case of foo-foo One by one', the association is from individuals to individual entities, as in (114). (114)

a.

b.

i bun a-foo-foo 3P1S die AbsolSg-one-one 'They died one after the other (=one at a time).' ay noo i-kul se bombö ISgS give AbsolPl-all Dat candy gave one candy each to all of them.'

foo-foo one-one

In (114a), the members of the set 'they' are associated with members of an implied set of regularly spaced temporal points. In (114b), the members of the set of candies is associated with the members of the set 'them'. In some discourse contexts, distributive foo-foo One by one' can be used as a paucal ('a few'). While a distributive involves associations between members (or

5.4 Numerals and other quantifiers

93

subsets) of two sets and implies no upper limit on the size of these sets, paucal 'a few' has at least an informal upper bound (determined by contextual factors). When a fisherman says, in KCh, Ί caught them (fish) one by one,' using the distributive form a-foo-foo, the point is not necessarily the spatiotemporal spacing (as in a true distributive reading). Instead, the point may be the implicature that only a few fish were caught during the day.

5.4.5 Complementary subsets ('some ... , others ...') Another important logical relationship is generated by the partition of a set X of entities into two or more subsets (X,, X2,...). In discourse, antithetical predications are commonly made of the subsets, usually two in number but occasionally more. The role of quantifiers in such sequences can be examined by considering this scenario: 'The outlaws were holed up in a canyon. Some! gave themselves up immediately, somcj fought for a while then gave up, and some3 fought to the bitter end.' In English, this may be conveyed by any of the patterns in (115a-e), among others. symmetrical?

(115)

a. b. c. d. e.

somej some] some] some] some]

... , ... , ... , ... , ... ,

some2 ... ,, some3 ... others^ ... , others3 ... some2 ... , the others 3 ... others2 ... , the other s 3 ... others2 ... , still others3 ...

V no no no no

exclusive? open?

no

V V

partly

no no

V V V

V

Any combination of some and others involves at least some explicit exclusivity (the subsets do not overlap). With symmetrical some (115a), the quantifiers do not literally require exclusivity, though in the outlaw scenario described one can deduce exclusivity from the contrary relations among the predicates, and in any event exclusivity is often inferred from symmetrical parallel constructions like (115a) by implicature. The patterns (115a-b,e) could potentially continue with additional (fourth, fifth, ...) parallel segments, while (15c-d) are brought to a screeching halt by the others, which forces closure. In KCh, the typical pattern for antithetical parallelism is semantically distinct from all of these English patterns. What we usually get is the type ftndi yo ... , cindi yo ... , oindi yo ..., literally 'remainder PI ... , remainder PI ... , remainder ΡΓ (i.e., Others ... , others ... , others ...'). This symmetrical pattern resembles the English type (115a), except that it is entirely exclusive insofar as each segment (even the first) anticipatorily opposes its subset to the subsets expressed in the following segments. (Latin likewise has alii... , alii... Others ... , others ...'.) Other variants of the same general type are jere foo ... ,jere foo ... One part... , one part ...' and a-foo yo ... , a-foo yo... '(some) ones ... , (some) ones ...' In the latter type it is also possible to addDef di, giving a-foo di yo..., a-foo di yo ... 'the ones ..., the ones ...' When the complementary subsets each consist of an individual, the typical construction is indefinite a-foo..., a-foo ... One ... , one ...' or definite a-foo di... , a-foo di... 'the one ... , the one ...'

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

5.4.6 Generalized quantifiers ('many, much, few') Quantificational adjectives are, formally, special cases of ordinary adjectives of the sort discussed in §4.4.1-3. Specifically, as modifiers they follow the head noun (and any descriptive adjectives), and when they function as heads of NPs they take an Absol prefix. However, they differ from ordinary adjectives in some respects. The basic generalized quantifiers are 'many, much' and 'little, few'. Each is used with both mass and count nouns. For 'many, much' the intransitive verb is bow 'be abundant, numerous'. The modifying adjective corresponding to tow is bobo 'much, many'. On these forms, see §3.10.1. The Absol form is i-bobo. Following the pattern observed with numerals, even when added to countable nouns bobo is not directly followed by PI yo (116b), but yo is added if there is an intervening Def di (116c). (116)

a. jiiroo duijguri si year-this beans ImpfNeg 'This year, beans are not abundant.' b. tubaabu bobo bun white many die 'Many white people died.' c. tubaabu bobo di yo white many Def PI 'The many white people died.'

bow be-abundant

bun die

The opposite of 'many, much' is 'little, few, rare'. The intransitive verb used in this sense is ciina, which also means 'be small, young'. While ciina can also be used as a modifying adjective, in this function it is usually replaced by keyna 'little, few, small, young'. The Absol forms are i-ciinaand ΐ-keyna Unlike bobo, keyna in the sense 'few (in number)' can be followed directly by PI yo. This usefully makes possible a surface distinction between 'a small X' (X keyna) and 'a few Xs' (X keyna yo. keyna is not in normal use as an intransitive verb. Examples in (117). (117)

a. jiiroo duqgun year-this beans 'This year, beans are few.' b. tubaabu keyna white few Ά few whites died.'

go Impf

ciina be-few

yo PI

bun die

For the paucal use ('a few') of distributive foo-foo One by one', see §5.4.4.

5.4.7 Currency and time of day The local currency is the CFA franc, which is held at a fixed exchange rate to the French franc (FF) and is shared with the other Francophone West African countries

5.4 Numerals and other quantifiers

95

(except Mauritania). The rate was 50 CFA = 1 FF for many years until 1994, when it was abruptly devalued to 100 CFA = 1 FF. In the early years of Malian independence, there was a Malian franc (franc malien). However, currency is normally calculated in terms of the 'riyal' (<Spanish real, via Arabic). The usual KCh pronunciation is allaara; an older form alliyaara is found in other Songhay dialects and points to an Arabic prototype such as *ar-riyaal(a) via metathesis of r and 1. The riyal was a colonial-era coin of high value. Terms for smaller colonial-era coins like koboro are now used chiefly in 'red cent' negative polarity usage ('he didn't give me even a koboro'). As the colonial currency was displaced first by the franc malien and then by the CFA franc, the vernacular term allaara was equated with multiples of these new official units, and currency continues to be calculated in riyals in the native languages (though not in local French). One riyal is equivalent to 5 CFA francs. Therefore, in the marketplace, waraqka 'twenty' denotes the 100 CFA coin and jember foo One thousand' denotes the 5000 CFA banknote. However, milyo foo One million' (cf. French million) is directly equated with 1,000,000 CFA (French million francs) rather than a million riyals (=5,000,000 CFA). In stating the unit prices of commodities, distributive reduplications of numerals are commonly used (§5.4.4). Clock times are now commonly expressed in French (e.g. trois heures et demi '3:30'). The traditional time-of-day expressions revolve around the five daily Muslim prayers as coordinates, supplemented by a few other expressions. See §11.1.4 for details. 5.4.8 Quantification over pronouns The interaction of quantifiers with pronouns is tricky, since there are three basic semantic possibilities, exemplified by 'three of us' (partitive), 'we three' (enumerating), and Our three' (possessive). The partitive is most clearly expressed by combining a locative PP of the type yer kuna 'in us' (or 'from us) with the quantified NP, as in (118); for Loc PPs in partitive function see §5.4.10. The quantified phrase is an autonomous NP; note boro 'person' as head noun in (118a). The locative PP may immediately precede the quantified NP, as in (118a-b), or it may occur at or near the end of the clause (see §5.4.10). (118)

a. b.

[yer kuna] boro bobo koy [1P1 Loc] person many go 'Many of us went.' a kar [yer kuna] a-hinja 3SgS hit [1P1 Loc] Absol-three 'He hit three of us.'

In both the enumerating and possessive constructions, the pronoun in question precedes the quantifier. When the quantifier is kul 'all', we get clearcut enumerating expressions like war kul 'all of you(Pl)'. However, with numerals, the preferred

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

surface expression adds a head noun distinct from the pronoun. The usual noun used for this purpose is boro 'person', as in (119). (119)

yer boro 1P1 person 'we three'

hinja three

Here yer might be said to be in apposition to boro or perhaps to boro hinja. But it is also possible to construe (119) syntactically as a possessive expression, glossable as Our three persons' (cf. English the three of us). This is because possessors (including pronominal possessors) precede the heads nouns they modify and only optionally take Poss postposition wane (§4.1.5, §5.2.1). What then about unambiguously possessive constructions like Our three' (simplified from Our three dogs' or the like), with an unexpressed but understood head noun? The expected maximal version of this is of the type [yer ( wane )] 0 i-hinja, lit. '[1P1 (Poss)] 0 Absol-three,' with "0" representing the vacant head-noun slot. This is quite grammatical and relevant examples occur in texts. However, again bow 'person' is optionally added as a dummy noun stem, sometimes even when the referent in question is nonhuman, as in (120). (120)

yer (wane) 1P1 (Poss) Our three'

boro person

hinja three

Note that possessive (120) is distinguishable from enumerating (119) only by the presence of the optional Poss postposition, and the latter is more often omitted than present. The syntactic distinction between enumerating and possessive types is therefore shaky. For an English parallel note the phrasing of the three of us, which has enumerating function but which is expressed in possessive form (of).

5.4.9 Quantification over events The noun cee has the senses 'foot' and 'time (instance)'. This accidental homonymy reflects the phonetic merger of originally distinct stems (distinguished in DjCh and HS). In the sense 'time', dee is always quantified, and the resulting phrase appears as an adverbial modifier which takes scope over the core event type expressed by the verb and its arguments. (121)

ay kar gi [cee ISgS hit 3P1O [time Ί hit them three times.'

hinja] three]

Of course, the core event type must be aspectually bounded for such quantification to occur. An informal logical paraphrase of (121) would be 'the event e, where e = I hit them, occurred in three distinct spatiotemporal locations.'

5.5 Demonstrative woo

97

Another type of quantification is internal to a single event, involving its partial or full enactment: Ί started to hit them; I hit them thoroughly; I finished hitting them; I tried (and failed) to hit them.' This type of quantification is expressed by the combination of a special quantificational or aspectual serial verb with a substantive VP, see §9.7.5-6.

5.4.10 Partitive expressions Partitives are expressed as Locative PPs with postposition ra or kuna (§5.9.4; §11.1.2). The partitive phrase may immediately precede the quantified expression, or may come later in the clause. The relative frequency of kuna as opposed to ra appears to increase in the former, more salient position, especially when clause-initial. Examples in (122); cf. also (109b) in §5.4.3. §5.4.8 discusses difficulties of analysing combinations of quantifiers with pronominals. (122)

a.

c.

[i kuna] a-hinja kaa [3 PI Loc] Absol-three come 'Three of them came.' a-hinja kaa [i ra] Absol-three come [3P1 Loc] [=122a] bey [a ra] no-o 2SgS-Impf know [3Sg Loc] 'Do you know anything of (=about) it?'

hay a ?

thing ?

When denoting measured quantities of a commodity defined by cost, the normal construction is the numerical expression followed by the noun denoting the commodity: a-woy sukkar 'ten (of) sugar', i.e., ten riyals worth of sugar.

5.5 Demonstrative woo Dem woo 'this, that' (§4.2.1) follows nouns (123a), as well as modifying adjectives and numerals (123b), but precedes Def di and PI yo. It can also occur after personal pronouns (123c), in which case our free translation is of the type Ί here'.

(123)

a

b.

c.

bar woo di yo man Dem Def PI 'these (those) men' har jeen-o hinka woo di man old-Adj two Dem Def 'these (those) two old men' ay woo kaa wor o ISgS Dem Rel 2P1S Impf Ί here whom you(PI) see'

guna see

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

The combination woo di including Def di is very common, but woo occurs without di in deictic (pointing) function, where 'this' is the most common translation. di is not used after woo modifying a first or second person pronoun (123c). woo without di can also be used with a generic or other nonspecific noun, previously introduced as a discourse referent, in preposed topic function (124). (124)

aywa, ndooso woo, ni bey ka guna well, pickax Dem, 2SgS know Inf see nan^ kaa^ i-i kar gal place Ref 3PlS-Impf strike 3SgO? 'Well, this (type of) pickax, have you ever seen where they make it?'

On the other hand, di is normally present in discourse-anaphoric function: häysi woo di 'that (same) dog'. Likewise, woo may anaphorically denote an eventuality from the preceding discourse. Note also the common expression woo di banda 'after that (=afterwards)', with postposition banda 'behind, after'. (123c) shows a ISg pronoun, but other pronouns are also possible: yer woo yo 'we here', ni woo 'you(Sg) there', wor woo yo 'you(Pl) there'. Note that nominal PI morpheme yo (§5.7) is required when woo follows a plural pronoun, though yo is not added directly to such pronouns (#yer yo, #war yo). When woo is added to a third person pronoun, simple 3Sg a and 3P1 i must be replaced by corresponding "3F' pronouns, and Def diis optionally present: ijga woo di 'he (the aforementioned one)', with 3SgF ga (§8.4.2). gga woo 'he (there)' without di is also attested. A plural ngi woo yo is also recorded, suggesting that 3P1F ggi-yo might be separated into its component morphemes by an intervening woo. However, we do not get #rjga woo yo with 3SgF pronoun, so the initial morpheme in qgi woo yo is already plural (§3.8.8). woo is occasionally added to a deictic adverbial like nee 'here', and this combination allows freer use of further postpositions: nee woo ga 'from here'. However, woo is uncommon in this combination in Timbuktu. There are occasional textual examples of the apparent type woo X woo with two instances of woo flanking a noun X. This is atypical of Timbuktu (though common in DjCh), and since there are fairly few textual examples, one is tempted to consider some of them to be restarts with the noun included belatedly ('this—, this X'). There is also the possibility that the preceding woo is a possessor in some examples ('this X of this'). Similar issues arise with woo di before a noun X.

5.6 Definite di The Def morpheme is di. It follows the lexical material (noun, adjective), numerals, and Dem in a full NP, but precedes PI yo, discourse-function markers, and postpositions. Its functions resemble those of the English definite article, except that it can be used after demonstrative woo in woo di 'that'. Examples in (125).

5.7 Plural yo (125)

a.

b.

koyra di yo town Def Pl 'the towns' [bor bibi hirjka di] [person black two Def] 'for the two black persons'

99

se Dat

Def frequently co-occurs with Dem woo (examples in §5.5), but cannot be added directly to personal pronouns: #ni di 'you', tiqga di 'she'. Forijga woo di, see §5.5. KCh di has a much broader grammatical range than those of its cognates, KS din and HS di. KS and HS have a distinct suffixal definite category, to which di(n) may be added as a stronger discourse-anaphoric marker. Consider now (126). (126)

moreyda [alhoor di] muso foo na now [limestone Def] manner which? Foe wor ο gar ga [dow di] cire ? 2P1S Impf find 3SgO [sand Def] under? 'Now the limestone, how do you find it under the sand?'

In the relevant text, 'limestone' has just previously been established as a topic, so di in alhoor di could be taken as marking discourse-internal defmiteness. However, 'sand' is mentioned here for the first time, so Def di in dow di must reflect another kind of definiteness. Since it functions here to denote the surface of the ground (which happens to be sand in most of the Timbuktu region), it is entirely parallel to English the ground, French le sol, etc. It is "definite" in the sense that in any normal location there is exactly one surface of this type. In "loose" compounds (§4.6.1), where the compound initial as well as the compound final is a NP, and in possessive constructions, we often get double di marking, as in (127). (127)

[dow di] soso [sand Def] potash 'the earth's potash'

di Def

di is also attested as one of the right-edge markers specifying the end of a conditional antecedent (§9.5.10). This usage is rare in my Timbuktu data and is apparently not part of the grammar of most Timbuktu speakers. The usage is common in DjCh (Appendix 2).

5.7 Plural yo PI yo (variant ye when non-phrase-final, §3.8.5) follows the lexical stems (nouns, adjectives), Dem woo, and Def di in a full NP. It is not used immediately after a numeral or other quantifier except under specific circumstances (details in §5.4.1). The PI morpheme is not used directly after a plural personal pronoun, though if

100 5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax demonstrative woo is added to such a pronoun the morpheme does appear: yer 'we' (never #jer yd), but yer woo yo 'we here* (§5.5). yo precedes discourse-function markers and postpositions. It is commonly pronounced ye before a postposition (§3.8.4). Examples in (128); note the absence of yo in (128b) after a numeral. (128)

a.

b. c.

haw di yo cow Def PI 'the cows' woy hinja woman three 'three women' woy di ye woman Def PI 'for the women*

se Dat

yo freely co-occurs with a following kul 'all' (§5.4.3), but this is just one respect in which kul diverges from ordinary quantifiers. On the other hand, yo is often omitted with nouns in generic function (e.g. plant and animal species terms); cf. (245) in §7.1.4, below.

5.8 Markers of discourse status 5.8.1 Focus (Foe na and SFoc rjga) Focalized constituents (as we use the term here) are always fronted to a position preceding the remainder of the clause. This is most obvious with constituents that are otherwise postverbal, such as direct objects and adpositional complements. Since subjects are clause-initial anyway, their focalization does not produce an obvious "fronting," but one can argue nonetheless that fronting occurs here too. The usual markers of focalization are Subject Focus (SFoc) qga, inserted obligatorily between a focalized subject and the following material (MAN morphemes, then VP), and non-subject Focus (Foe) na, which can be omitted under some conditions but is usually present after an NP (or adverbial) fronted from post-verbal position. Simple examples are in (129). (129)

a.

ay ijga gar ga ISg SFoc find 3SgO 'It is I [focus] who found it.' (subject focus) b. maa na no-o taasi what? Foe 2SgS-Impf seek 'What [focus] are you looking for?' (nonsubject focus)

For fuller discussion of the syntax, see §8.1.1-2. Historically, na reflects a weak demonstrative *no 'there' and is therefore related etymologically to identificational

5.5 Markers of discourse status

101

quasi-verb nono 'it is', §7.1.1. (KS has no as both a focalizer and a reduced 'there' demonstrative.) SFoc rjga is intriguingly homophonous to 3SgF pronoun rjga (§8.4.2). There is considerable variation in the form of SFoc morphemes throughout the KChDjCh-KS zone, permitting speakers of each dialect to make different morphemic associations (with attendant "deep" syntactic analysis) for the SFoc marker. It is doubtful that either na or rjga forms a surface constituent, strictly speaking, with the preceding focalized constituent. If it did, one would expect that the particle would occur as part of truncated WH questions ('who?') and as part of truncated replies to WH questions (Q: 'What did you find?'; A: "The dog'). However, na and rjga are never used in this way; the truncated interrogative or reply consists simply of the focalized interrogative pronoun or NP. The truncated form of (129b) is maa 'what?', not #maa na, and that of (129a) is ay T, not #ay rjga. NPs (and PPs) are not the only constituents that can be, in principle, focalized. VPs can be focal (Q: 'What did you do?'; Α: Ί cried'), as can truth values ('Yes I did see him'). However, in KCh there is no overt grammatical marking of verb, VP, or truth-value focus. In practice, "focus" applies to NPs, PPs, and adverbials like 'here' and 'today' which can be analysed as reduced or defective NPs.

5.8.2 Topic (Top bine, Top fa) Functionally topical NPs (and NP-like adverbials) may simply be proposed to the sentence proper, without overt morphological marking of topicality (examples in §8.4.1). However, there are two overt morphemes expressing topicality of one sort or another and which can occur in an NP (130). For more on bine, see §8.4.1. (130) a. b.

Topic markers form label and gloss bine Top, 'as for...' ta (weak) Top

comments strong topic, usually proposed weak topic, proposed or in situ

bine and ta follow, and form a constituent with, an NP, or pronoun, or adverbial.

5.8.3 Other discourse-functional morphemes Other discourse-functional morphemes which can occur at or near the end of NPs are those listed in (131). (131)

form nin fan moo yaa Jaa dee

gloss Only' Only' 'also' Emph Emph Emph

comments the normal Timbuktu form
102

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

These particles are deceptively complex semantically. Some of them can also appear at or near the end of the sentence, taking wide scope (e.g. over eventualities). Their syntax and semantics are described in detail in chapter 8. Here we will present some examples of their narrower usage with constituent scope over a NP. In this function, they occur at the end of the NP but precede postpositions, as shown in (132). (132)

a.

b.

c.

d.

[[a bomo lawal di nin] ra] hew keyna goo [[3Sg head first Def only] Loc] wind little exist Only in its (=storm's) onset was there a little wind.' no-o didii [[banda di moo] ga] bundu keyna, 2SgS-Impfroll [[back Def also] at] stick small, e! korfo keyna oops! rope small 'You roll a small stick—I mean a small rope—, on its back also.' [[yerkoy yaa] wane] mise [[God Emph] Poss] way 'God's way' [[seefaa di daa] kuna] a ci allaara iiye nda jere [[CFA Def Emph] Loc] 3SgS be riyal seven with part 'Precisely in CFA (currency), it's seven riyals and change.'

The postpositions (ra, ga, wane, kuna)fol\ovr nin Only' in (132a), moo 'also' in (132b), weak Emph yaa in (132c), and Emph daa in (132d). The ordering of discoursefunction morphemes before postpositions appears to be fixed syntactically rather than semantically. There is a logically possible scope difference between, say, Only [in [its first part]]' and 'in [only [its first part]]', but in practice the semantic difference is slight and a syntactic fixing of the order does not cause communicative problems. (133)

maa se [mobil ressort nin] na wor o faas/? what? Dat [vehicle springs only] Foe 2P1 Impf seek 'Why is it [only car springs] [focus] that you(Pl) seek?'

(133) has mobil ressort 'car springs' in focus (with Focus morpheme na), as well as being restricted by nin Only'. For maa se in this example, see discussion of (307ac) in §8.2.3.

5.8.4 Co-occurrence of discourse-functional morphemes We limit our attention here to cases where two of the DF morphemes mentioned in the preceding sections occur within the same NP constituent. Since the Foe na and SFoc ga (§5.8.1) do not seem to be bracketed with the preceding constituent, we omit combinations involving them and a preceding NP ending with a DF morpheme The weak Top marker fa, which is most common after after subject NPs (especially pronouns), can combine with a following discourse marker. The attested combinations, and textual examples, are given in (134).

5.9 Adpositions and case-marking (134)

103

Combinations of discourse-functional morphemes a. ta bine (Top + Top) yer^ ta bine,...

IPT b.

Top Top

'as for us,...' ta daa (Top + Emph) [woo di ta daa] na yer o tammahaa [Dem Def Top Emph] Foe 1P1S Impf hope 'Precisely that [focus] is what we hope (for).'

(134a) shows the weak Top marker followed by the stronger, topic-establishing or -switching morpheme bine. In (134b), the weak Top marker ta is added to demonstrative 'that', which refers discourse-anaphorically to a prior proposition, and daa has the function of emphasizing exactness.

5.9 Adpositions and case-marking 5.9.1 Unmarked case versus adpositions The distinction between subject and direct object is expressed by constituent order. Subject NPs precede MAN morphemes and the verb, which is followed by direct objects and PPs. When a direct object is fronted in the focalization construction it precedes the subject NP and is normally followed by Foe morpheme na. Although subject and direct-object NPs lack case markers, there is rarely any difficulty in identifying these case functions. (135) is a simple transitive example. (135)

[har di^] o guna [man Def] Impf see 'The man sees the woman.'

[woy [woman

di] Def]

Certain personal pronouns (3Sg, 3P1) have distinct forms for subject and object function, the subject variants also being used before postpositions (§4.1.1). Topic NPs ending with Top bine ('as for'), which precede the sentence proper, are also unmarked for case; see §5.8.2. Many "adverbs" can be thought of as nouns or simplified NPs denoting times, locations, and similar concepts. If so, they can be analysed as NPs unmarked for case on the surface, though some kind of locative is implied ('tomorrow' = 'at tomorrow'). Most other grammatical relations are expressed by postpositions to be described in the following sections, though in some cases the postposition can be omitted.

104 5 Nominal inflection and N P syntax 5,9.2 Dative se Dat se is the normal postposition for indirect objects. After noo 'give', the Dat NP denotes the receiver. 'Give' and 'show' also have an alternative case-frame with two apparent direct objects (§9.1.2). After har 'say', the Dat NP denotes the person spoken to. After neere 'sell', it denotes the person sold to (=the buyer). In (136) we have 'sell' with a pronominal Dat, while in (137) we have a fronted Dat NP functioning as focus. (136)

no-o neere ga [i se] allaara jember hinja 2SgS-Impfsell 3SgO [3P1 Dat]riyal thousand three 'You sell it to them for 3000 riyals.'

(137)

[mobil se] na yer har yer o kow ga [vehicle Dat] Foe 1P1S say 1P1S Impf remove 3SgO 'It's [to the truck (driver)] [focus] that we say we'll remove it.'

The Dat morpheme is always se at the end of a regular NP or after Dem woo (di) 'this, that'. It is also se after most pronouns, but there is a special ISgDat form yene and a special 2SgDat form mana ~ mane (§4.1.1) in postverbal (i.e. enclitic) position. When fronted in the focus construction we get the regular forms, ISgDat ay se and 2SgDatm se. There are occasional "ethical datives" in the texts, i.e., ISg or 2Sg datives that arc not part of the reported eventuality and are best omitted from free English translations (138). (138)

ay hää ga, wala a na kubey yene A ISgS inquire 3SgO, or 3SgS Neg meet ISgDat A asked him whether he hadn't met (lit. "met for me") A [man's name].'

5.9.3 Possessive wane Possessor NPs or pronouns precede the possessed noun (or NP). The optional Possessive postposition wane follows a possessor NP or pronoun, as in (139a-b). (139)

a.

b.

[kokoy di (wane)] [chief Def (Poss)] 'the chiefs house' [ay (wane)] huu [ISg (Poss)] house 'my house'

huu house

di Def

di Def

When the possessed noun is missing, the postposition on the possessor is obligatory. In this case, wane is normally followed by Def di (which takes semantic scope over the missing noun), and the combination is pronounced wan di with the e dropped (§3.8.4), as in (140).

5.9 Adpositions and case-marking

105

[woo di yo wan] 0 di [Dem Def PI Poss] 0 Def 'the one (=wage) of those (workers)'

(140)

For more on the use of wane, see §5.2.1. To indicate temporary possession or custody, ga is used instead of wane (§5.9.5).

5.9.4 Locative ra and kuna The two Loc postpositions ra and kuna are basically interchangeable, ra being more common. Their core sense is 'in (container or field)', denoting location inside or immediately attached to the object or zone denoted by the NP to which they are attached. Motion ('into, onto') may or may not be involved. Examples in (141). A more thorough analysis of the semantics, including partitive function, is given in §11.1.2. (141)

a.

b.

yee dam [ay wane humbal di ra] hari ISgSImpf put [ISg Poss waterbag Def Loc] water Ί (will) put water in(to) my waterbag.' nda_^ i dam ga [hari kuna] if ~ 3P1S put 3SgO [water Loc] 'if (when) they put it in(to) the water,...'

A semantically expected Loc postposition and Def di are often omitted with nouns functioning as spatiotemporal adverbials (e.g. 'there', 'tomorrow'), and with certain high-frequency nouns denoting socially significant zones, such as yoobu 'market' and ganji 'wilderness' (§5.12). Cognates of ra are DjCh la and KS ra (la after a nasal or liquid), and the postposition may be ancient. Locative postpositions usually derive historically from nouns meaning 'place', 'interior', or the like, but I can identify no specific noun stem as the likely etymological source for these forms. If *ra is original, we should look for a noun roughly of the shape *CVra, since tap *r does not otherwise occur morphemeinitially in native Songhay vocabulary. If *la is the older variant this consideration does not apply, laabu 'earth, soil' (KS labu) is perhaps a candidate, but it does not mean 'place'. With kuna we have better luck. KCh itself has a frozen compound haw-kuna 'belt' including haw 'tie'. (Cf. KS kuna-haw 'belt' and HS kun-haw verb 'tie belt on'.) KCh also has a reduplicated noun kuna-kuna '(the) very bottom (of pit, well, etc.)', and a frozen instrumental phrase nda kuna 'internally, on the inside' (§5.11.4). These forms, and perhaps the verb kun 'be pregnant' suggest an original meaning complex for *kun(a) on the order of 'deep interior, middle, womb, midsection, waist'. The bleaching of such a noun into a Loc adposition is natural.

106

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

5.9.5 ga On, by, from, out of ga has a short vowel in KCh. It is therefore clearly distinct from preverbal Presentative morpheme gaa (§7.2.3) and from the clause-final Emphatic gaa (
a.

b.

c.

yee kar [a ga] guusu ISgSImpf hit [3Sg by] hole Ί knock (=make) a hole in it (stone).' no-o bisa [a ga] 2SgS-Impf pass [3Sg by] 'You'll pass by it (limestone).' nda a gar [kuumu goo^ ay ga] if 3SgS find [hoe exist ISg by] 'if it happens that a hoe is on me (=in my possession)'

Being sensitive to verbal semantics, ga is prone to selection as a complement by particular verbs (§6.1.4). It has cognates in several other Songhay languages, and is perhaps derived historically from *gaa 'body'.

5.9.6 doo 'chez, at (the place of)' The other postposition calling for special commentary is doo 'at (the place of)'. It is often used like French chez in the specific sense 'at the house of, but it can also mean 'in the presence of (someone)' with no necessary reference to dwellings, and 'in the vicinity of (something)' with nonhuman complement. Examples in (143). (143)

a.

b.

saa kaa wor too [alhoor-fiaa di doo] time Rel you(Pl) arrive [limestone-mother Def chez] 'when you have arrived in the vicinity of the large limestone block' yer ο koy [mobil-koy di ye doo] 1P1S Impf go [vehicle-boss Def PI chez] 'We (will) go to the place where the vehicle owners (drivers) are.'

In (143b), the speaker was describing the area in town (a few blocks) where large vehicles are garaged and where spare parts and mechanics can be found. For more on the semantics, see §11.1.2. doo is related to an archaic noun stem -doo 'place' used as compound final in a few combinations like kani-doo 'bedding' (original sense probably 'sleeping place'), and to doodi ~ dooti 'there' (*doo di). There is little or no synchronic connection among these forms. The proto-form may have been *dogV or *dorV (KS definite singular dog-oo, Bamba dialect dor-aa).

5.9 Adpositions and case-marking

107

5.9.7 Postpositions of spatial orientation ('behind', 'facing', etc.) There are several other, more concrete spatial postpositions. Most of them are just special uses of nouns. Examples in (144). (144)

form banda bcene dire jere jine maasu tenje ~ tanje

gloss as postposition 'behind, among, beside, during, after' 'above, over, on top of 'under' 'beside, next to' 'in front of, ahead of 'inside, amid' 'facing (Fr en face de)'

gloss as noun 'back' 'top, upstairs, sky' 'underside' 'side, part (of whole)' 'front' 'middle'

tenje is also a verb 'be straight; go straight for; be face to face with'. In upriver Niafunko the form is tengi, while KS has verb tenji ~ tenje and complex postposition teng-oo ra. It is possible that this set (*tengiteqge) has an etymological connection to the noun 'forehead' (Timbuktu teile, Niafunke teqe, DjCh teqe ~ teqge, KS dialects terje- terja ~ tefie ~ tefia). Examples of these postpositions are in (145).

(145)

yee jow ay kuumu foo [ay banda] one [ISg after] ISgSImpf take ISg hoe Ί take one of my hoes along with me.' i-i gum ga [a beene] 3PlS-Impf use-as-cover 3SgO [3Sg above] 'They put it (leather hide) on top of it (straw)." 777 cendu ga ... [a haqa cire] di Def under] 2SgS pull 3SgO ... [3Sg ear 'You have pulled it (hot iron) along ... under its (donkey's) ear.' lay nda ni} ο key [cere jere] [ISg with 2SgO] Impf stand [tuend beside] '[You and I] will stand [beside one another] (=side by side).' nda ni key-ndi [a jine] hari if 2SgS stand-Caus [3Sg in-front] water 'if you have set some water in front of it (donkey)' f. hal a ma beer until 3SgS Subju be-big ka boro foo go hin ka goro [a maasu] Inf person one Impf can Inf sit [3Sg inside] '...so that it (hole) becomes big (enough) so a person can sit inside it.' huu di goo poste tenje g· a 3Sg house Def be post-office facing 'His house is across from (=facing) the post office.'

a.

108 5 Nominal inflection and N P syntax A few of the forms are also common as adverbs without complements (beene 'above', jine 'in front, ahead').

5.9.8 Quasi-prepositionsjaa 'since' and hal 'until' The two morphemes jaa 'since' and hal 'until' are common as clause-initial morphemes, perhaps best analysed as adverbial complementizers (§9.5.6). However, they can also take narrow scope over NPs or adverbs specifying spatial or temporal points, jaa is used with the starting point, hal with the endpoint. The two forms may be used singly, or together in a jaa ... , hal ... parallel structure. Examples of these morphemes with NP or adverbial scope are are in (146). (146)

a.

b.

c.

hal höö until today 'even today (not just in the past)' yer nan_^ ga [hal alaasar] 1P1 Impf leave 3SgO [until afternoon] 'We will leave it until the afternoon (prayer).' [jaa alfajar] yer o koy kata gi [since dawn] 1P1S Impf go bring 3P1O 'Starting at dawn we go fetch them.'

It is perhaps misleading to describe these morphemes as "prepositions" since they are most common as complementizers with clausal complements. One could argue that cases like 'since dawn' (146c) are reduced from clausal constructions like 'since dawn arrived'.

5.9.9 Prepositions bilaa 'without', bara or kala 'except' bilaa 'without' (
no-o hin^ ka koy bilaa kupkup wala ndooso ? 2SgS-Impfcan Inf go without machete or pick-ax? 'Can you go (to get limestone) without a machete blade or a pick-ax?'

One could also reconstruct this as a clausal complement ('without having a machete ...'). bilaa may be followed by a pronoun: bilaa_^ey 'without me', bilaa ni 'without you(Sg)'. A third person pronoun takes "3F" form: bilaa qga 'without him'. An alternative to simple bilaa X is an expanded construction bilaa nda X containing nda 'with', as in bilaa nda^ ey 'without me'. The disjunction 'without X or Y' is expressed as 'without [X or Y]' using wala Or', as in (147).

5.9 Adpositions and case-marking

109

bara and (dialectally) kala occur with a following NP or NP-like constituent (pronoun, adverbial) X in the sense 'except X*. For examples and analysis see §8.5.3-4.

5.9.10 game 'between, among, amidst' There are two constructions in which game occurs. First, it can be a simple postposition with preceding NP (or pronoun), as in (148). (148)

a.

b.

ay koy-nda kuumu di [fan di ISgS go-with hoe Def [field Def Ί took the hoe amidst (=into the midst of) the field.' njerfu di kaa goo^ yer game money Def Rel be 1P1 between 'the money (=debt) that is between us'

game] amidst]

The second construction involves an additional reciprocal phrase nda Sere (§10.2.5-6), literally 'with friend' (i.e., 'with each other, mutually') intervening between the NP and game, hence NP nda cere game. This overtly reciprocal construction is much more common than the simple NP game. The reciprocal form occurs once in (149a) and twice in (149b). (149)

a.

fahaam-ey, understanding,

kallasi

b.

di]

woo daa qga ci Dem Emph 2Foc be

kaa

hin_^

ka

[[aadama-jje [[human

kallasi

wane] Poss]

ga,

protection Def] Rel can Inf protect 3SgO, [[[ganji-ije di yo] nda cere] game] [[[forest-child Def PI] with friend] among] 'Intelligence^ it is thisx which is a human'sy protectionz, whichz can protect him(her)y, among the wild animals.' subu di yo kaa jey-jey hayni di yo nda cere game, grass Def PI Rel Rdp-sprout millet Def PI with friend among, no-o jow kuumu no-o filla jafa gi no-o 2SgS-Impf take hoe 2SgS-Impf repeat cut 3P1O 2SgS-Impf kow gi, hayni di ye nda cere game remove 3P1O, millet Def PI with friend among 'The weedsx that sprout among the millet plants, you(Sg) take a hoe, you slash (the ground around) them, again, you remove themx, (from) among the millet plants.'

One might expect the difference between NP nda cere game and NP game to correlate with the semantic-syntactic presence versus absence of a reciprocal structure. The relevant reciprocal structure would be of the type 'Wex are happy [among ourselves,] (=together),' where the complement of 'among' is coindexed with a preceding NP such as the sentential subject. A nonreciprocal structure would be of the type 'They sat [among us],' with no coindexation. However, (149a-b) are semantically nonreciprocal constructions, yet show NP nda cere game instead of NP game, and

110

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

the much higher text frequency of NP nda Sere game suggests that this combination is in the process of generalizing to all contexts. True reciprocal examples are given in (150). The transcription of the second part of (150a) has been slightly edited to patch up a false start, but this does not affect the point at hand.

(150)

a.

b.

muso

kaa

na yer

ci [[yer nda

cere]

game],

like-this Rel 0 1P1S be [[1P1 with friend] among], [[yer nda cere] game] [[1P1S with friend] among] boro yo goo yer ra kaa ci boro bey-nte person PI be 1P1 Loc Rel be person fine '... just as we are among ourselves; among ourselves, there are people in us (=in our midst) who are excellent people.' i cii ga rjgi-ye nda cere game 3P1S discuss 3SgO SReflPl with friend among 'They discuss it among themselves.'

In (151), the NP in NP nda cere game is the conjunction of two plural pronominals denoting separate groups, hence [NP, + NP2] nda Sere game. The sense of game is nonetheless 'between NP, (as a group) and NP2 (as a group)' rather than 'among the set of members of NP, and NP2 combined'. (151)

aywa atakurmi ta yee hongu yerkoy nin nga dam well Atakurmi Top ISgSImpf believe God only SFoc put jejow [[[yer nda gi] nda cere] game] barrier [[[1P1 and 3P1O] with friend] among] 'Well, as for Atakurmi (=dwarf), I think it is God who put a barrier between us (=humans) and them (=dwarfs).'

Since the usual sense of game is 'between, among', the preceding NP (or pronoun) is normally plural, as in (148b), (149a-b), (150a-b), and (151). Much less commonly, the NP is grammatically singular. In (148a), the fact that the NP is singular ('the field') and is not coindexed with an earlier NP probably forces the use of NP game instead of the more common, overtly reciprocal NP nda cere game. However, NP game can be used with plural NP, such as the 1P1 pronoun in (148b). Combinations like #ay game 'among me' with singular human NP were rejected.

5.10 Apposition 5.10.1 Pronouns in apposition to NPs Consider (152a-b).

5.10 Apposition (152)

a.

b.

yer^ tubaabu di yo 1ΡΪ white Def PI 'us white people' wor gundam boro di 2P1 Goundam person Def 'you Goundam (a town) people'

111

yo PI

Such combinations can be analysed as simple appositional combinations of a pronoun and a full NP. However, we cannot rule out another analysis, namely as possessive phrases (Our whites', 'your Goundam people'). In this view, yer^ tubaabu di yo is simply a reduced variant of the explicitly possessive [yer wane] tubaabu di yo Our whites', with Poss wane. Informants accepted such explicitly possessive rephrasings. On the frequent omission of this postposition, see §5.2.1. The Topic marker ta is fairly common after the pronoun, as in (153). (153)

...jaa aljumaahan [yer ta tumbutu boro] si fan ...since Friday day [1P1 To p Timbuktu person] ImpfNegfarm '... since on Friday(s), we Timbuktu people do not farm (=do farm work).'

Note that the "appositional" noun, like boro in (153), can be grammatically singular when it has generic reference, as an alternative to the pattern in (152a-b) where the noun has the same number marking as the preceding pronoun. The apparent independence of number marking on the pronoun and noun in (153) is evidence in favor of a possessive analysis (Our [typical] Timbuktu person'). A possessive analysis would be awkward with a singular pronoun denoting a person. A phrase like 'ISg chief normally means 'my chief, and allowing it to also have an appositional reading Ί, the chief would result in considerable confusion. In fact, such juxtapositions do not normally allow appositional readings, unless the noun is a personal name or other noun not ordinarily possessed, as in (154), where (as in some other examples) the original name has been replaced by the linguist's name for reasons of informant confidentiality. For Ί, the chief see the following section. (154)

[ay Jeff/ nga_^ o har [ISg J] SFoc Impf say 'It is I, Jeff, who am saying it.'

ga 3SgO

5.10.2 Relative clauses with appositional function Another common device for expressing (English) appositions, whether or not one of the elements is a pronoun, is a relative-clause construction of the type 'X which is Y' as in (155).

112

(155)

5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax a.

b.

c.

ni kaa ci har di 2Sg Rel be male Def 'you who are the man' (= 'you, namely, the man') [ay kaa ci amiir^ di] rjga har ga [ISgS Rel be chief^ Def] SFoc say 3SgO 'It was I, who am the chief, that said it.' suba kaa ci assabdu tomorrow Rel be Saturday 'tomorrow, which is Saturday' (= 'tomorrow, namely Saturday')

The pronominal type (155a-b) is especially common when a second person pronoun is used in generic function in a context involving multiple referents, whereby the speaker must occasionally clarify which referent is indexed by this pronoun. (155a) was used in a general discussion of wedding rituals, and specifies that 'you' (at this point in the text) denotes the bridegroom.

5.11 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs nda is very common as a clause-initial 'if subordinator in the antecedent clause of a conditional (§9.5.1). However, in the present chapter we are concerned with the syntax and semantics of the sentence-internal phrase type nda NP. In the following sections we interpret "NP" broadly to include pronouns and NP-like adverbials, except when (as in §5.11.2) we speak specifically of "full NPs" (i.e., NPs headed by a noun stem). In the conjunction X nda Y, where X and Υ are NPs, the morpheme nda appears at first glance to be an operator which handles its left and right conjuncts symmetrically, producing a phrase of the same syntactic type as the conjuncts. In the following two sections we will question the apparent symmetry of nda. The phrase type nda NP with a single overt argument NP is also common. It is the basic instrumental phrase, and can also be used as a comitative phrase. It usually functions semantically as part of a VP (see §5.11.3). As an 'and' conjunction, nda is restricted to conjoining syntactic NPs (including pronouns) and NP-like adverbials. To a limited extent, it can also conjoin postpositional phrases involving postpositions with noun-like character, but it does not seem to work with the most highly grammaticalized postpositions and cannot conjoin prepositional phrases (with Instr-Comit nda or with bilaa 'without', §5.11.6). Furthermore, nda cannot be used as an 'and' conjunction linking two verbs, inflected VPs, or clauses. The closest functional equivalent to "conjunction" in such cases is the addition of an infinitival VP beginning in ka (§9.7.1, §6.3.2) to a preceding VP. When nda is clause-initial, it functions not as an 'and' conjunction, rather as an 'if conjunction in conditional antecedent clauses (§9.5.1). An apparent counterexample to the claim that nda 'and' is not used to conjoin clauses is (156).

5.77 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs (156)

i-i rjaa h ySi nda [ay si bey hay kaa 3PlS-Impfeat dog and [ISglmpfNegknow thing Rel 'They eat dog and [I don't know what (else)].'

113

yo] PI]

The bracketed phrase in (156) has the form of a clause, but functions semantically and syntactically as an NP (as does its counterpart in the English translation). It is therefore just an NP conjoined to 'dog'.

5.11.1 Conjunction of personal pronouns That the pattern X [nda Ύ] 'X and Y' is asymmetrical even when X (left conjunct) and Υ (right conjunct) are of the same syntactic type is most clearly seen by studying the forms they take when X and Υ are personal pronouns. There is a standardized ordering of the pronoun categories along a (grammaticalized) topicality hierarchy, and certain pronominal categories take different forms as left and as right conjuncts. The ordering of categories normally follows the hierarchy in (157), as seen in (158). Counterexamples with ordering inverted occasionally occur in direct elicitation, probably reflecting interference from French cues, but are unidiomatic and do not occur in texts. Simple 3Sg or 3P1 pronouns never occur as left conjuncts since this is an "exposed" syntactic position forcing replacement of (unmarked) 3Sg by 3SgF and of 3P1 by 3P1F (§8.4.2). (157)

(158)

Hierarchical ordering of pronominal categories in conjunctions with nda first person > second person > "3F1 > {3Sg, 3P1} a.

b.

c.

d.

ay nda ISg and Ί and you(Sg)' yer nda 1P1 and 'we and she' ni nda 2Sg and 'you(Sg) and they' nga nda 3SgF and 'hex and shey'

ni 2SgO ga 3SgO gi 3P1O ga 3SgO

Logophoric pronouns fit somewhat variably into the hierarchy (157), reflecting the fact that a (third person) logophoric pronoun in reported speech represents a first person pronoun in the original speech event (Ί am coming' becoming reported-speech 'Hex said he, (LogoSg) was coming'). See end of §10.1.2 for examples and discussion. Some subdialects of KS express Ί, and hey' as 'we,y and hey' and so forth, the left conjunct being pluralized to subsume the denotation of the two conjuncts. This

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5 Nominal inflection and N P syntax

construction does not occur, to my knowledge, in KCh, and combinations like (158a) with singular left conjunct are normal. From (158c-d) we can see that the right conjuncts take the same form as directobject pronominals. This is most obvious with 3P1O gi ~ ji and 3SgO ga, but all other pronominal right conjuncts are at least compatible with this morphological equation. The left conjunct might then be taken to be associated with subject status. There is some syntactic evidence for this, since expressions like 'hex and hisx mother' require reflexivization of the possessor pronoun. However, (158d) shows that a 3Sg left conjunct appears as 3SgF ijga rather than as ordinary 3SgS a. Left conjuncts are therefore an "exposed" syntactic position in the sense of §3.8.8 and §8.4.2, unlike the usual (proclitic) subject position. The subject-object asymmetry supports a bracketing [X [nda Y]], in which the right conjunct is the immediate complement of nda. However, this judgement depends in part on our overall interpretation of the morphosyntactic status of object pronouns, on which see §9.1.1. In "correct" English we say he and I went, his and my (=our) house, and you saw him and me. That is, case is assigned to the pronouns on the basis of their syntactic function in the larger sentence, as in [you saw him] and [(you saw) me]. In colloquial English, on the other hand, freezing of conjoined pronominal forms occurs as the old accusative forms generalize, resulting in e.g. [him and me] went. However, this is not usually extended to the possessive: W[him and me's] house. In KCh, pronominal conjunctions are invariable in form and are therefore not sensitive morphologically to surrounding syntax, even when functioning as possessors. Consider (160).

(159)

a.

b. c.

a huu di 3Sg house Def 'his house' #ga huu di [[ay [nda ga]] [[ISg [with 3SgO]] '[his and my] house'

huu house

di] Def]

3SgO ga is used in (159c) instead of the usual 3Sg possessive a, seen in (159a), since in (159c) the 3Sg pronoun is the right conjunct of nda and must therefore take object ("O") form. In an unconjoined 3Sg possessive, ga is ungrammatical (159b). This justifies the bracketing in (159c). An additional consequence of the freezing of pronominal conjunctions is that special clitic dative forms, ISg yene and 2Sg mana (§4.1.5, §5.9.2), cannot be used in conjunctions, as shown in (160). (160)

a.

a cerbu ga 3SgS show 3SgO 'She showed it to me.'

yene ISgDat

5.11 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs b.

a

cerbu

ga

c.

'She showed it to you.' a cerbu ga

115

mana 2SgDat

[[ay [nda [[ISg [and 'She showed it to you and me.'

ni]] se] 2SgO]Dat]

In (160c), the pronominal conjunction takes its regular, frozen form ay [nda ni] as it would in any other syntactic position. It is then combined with Dat postposition se. There is no trace of the special, irregular ISgDat and 2SgDat enclitic forms illustrated in(160a-b). Constructions with conjoined possessor are typically ambiguous when the possessed noun is singular. In (159c), '[his and my] house' is unambiguous; since there is only one house, we infer that it belongs jointly to the two referents. However, if we add PI yo to the end of (159c), giving '[his and my] houses', there is ambiguity between a joint-ownership reading and a disjoint-ownership reading. If necessary, the latter reading can be expressed unambiguously by separating the two implied possessive relationships, as in (161).

(161)

[ni huu di] nda [2Sg house Def] and 'your house and my house'

[ay [ISg

huu house

di] DefJ

5.11.2 Conjunction of two full NPs, or of a pronoun and full NP It is much easier to conjoin two full NPs (i.e. any NPs other than personal pronouns) with nda, since the microsyntactic rules affecting pronominal conjunction do not apply and since full NPs have no morphological distinction between subject and object cases. Given two full NPs, A and B, either A nda Β οτ Β nda A is syntactically grammatical. Of course, discourse factors will be involved in the left versus right positioning of the two conjuncts, but there is no real syntactic issue here. There are some idioms with fixed order, as in tene nda aljaka 'good luck' (lit. 'forehead and luck'). Extended nda strings with more than two conjuncts are possible, as in (162). (162)

yee maan^ndi [ay dofor di yo] ISgSImpf approach-Caus [ISg cushion Def PI] nda [ay korkor di yo], ... nda [ay wane ndooso di] and [ISg crate Def PI], ... and [ISg Poss pick-ax Def] nda [ay kubukubu] nda [ay pellu di] and [ISg machete] and [ISg shovel Def] Ί bring near (=gather) my padded (donkey) saddles, ... and my (donkey) crates, and my pick-ax, and my shovel.'

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

In theory, any such extended string allows for a range of bracketing possibilities as the initial A [nda B] is expanded. With a third conjunct we could have A [nda [B [nda C]] or [A [nda B]] nda C, depending on whether Z is directly conjoined to Υ or is conjoined to the preceding conjunctive NP as a whole. With a fourth conjunct, as in (162), the possibilities begin to increase exponentially. However, in (162) and in most similar examples, the alternative bracketings have no effect on the truth conditions for the overall sentence. When a pronoun is conjoined with an NP, the pronoun (which is presumably always more topical) comes first, as in (163-64). (163)

(164)

[ay [nda [boro di yo]]] si kuboy a ra [ISg [and [person Def PI]]] ImpfNeg meet 3Sg Loc Ί and the people don't meet in it.' [ijgi-ye [nda [baana di]] jjga^ o haqga [nda cere] [3P1F [and [rain Def]]] Sp'oc Impf follow [with friend] 'They (=God's reasons) and the rain follow each other (=are related).'

A pronoun can be conjoined to a WH interrogative stem in the same way (165). (165)

[ni [nda mey]] qga_^ [2Sg [and who?]] SFoc 'You and who (else) are sick?'

o Impf

wircil be-sick?

In the previous section, we noted that pronoun plus pronoun conjunctions are frozen in form and are not sensitive to surrounding syntax. In the case of pronoun plus full NP, on the other hand, there is (weak) evidence that the pronoun can take a clitic form determined by the surrounding syntax (to its left only). The expression 'it and the floodplain' normally takes the form ηga [nda [baqgu di]] ('3SgF [and [floodplain Def]]') in isolation, as sentence subject, etc. As usual for left conjuncts, 3SgF qga rather than simple 3Sg a is required here. However, when this conjoined NP functions as direct object, it seems to be at least marginally possible to replace ijga by the ordinary 3SgO postverbal clitic form ga, as in (166). (166)

no-o batu ga nda baqgu di 2SgS-Impf await 3SgO and floodplain Def 'You wait for it (millet seedbed) and the flooded area (paddy).'

However, such examples are rare, and their bracketing and semantic structure are unclear. It is possible that a) nda baqgu di in (166) is an afterthought addition, or that b) it is an independent comitative (rather than conjoined) phrase (see below).

5.11.3 Instrumental and comitative phrases The common instrumental phrase ('by means of X') is of the type nda NP, positioned somewhere after the verb. The complement may be a full (noun-headed) NP or a

5.77 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs

117

pronoun. Occasionally, this construction has comitative function ('along with X'). However, comitative sense is usually expressed either by a postposition banda (core sense: 'behind', §5.9.8), or else by fusing -nda to the verb as a derivational suffix, giving a transitive structure of the type VERB-nda ... X where the direct object X may be separated from -nda by intervening constituents (§6.2.5). A third, somewhat clumsier alternative to a simple comitative nda X is a conjunction including the other associated referent, even if repeated: Ί went there [I and him]' meaning Ί went there with him.' A true, independent comitative constituent of the type nda X is therefore fairly rare, but occurs for example when a VERB-nda derivative is causativized to VERB-Caus...[nda X], see kuboy-ndi ... nda ... 'cause to meet' in (213a) in §6.2.5, below. Our analysis here focuses chiefly on instrumental phrases, though we label nda flexibly as "Instr-Comit." Instrumental phrases differ from superficially identical strings within NP conjunctions (§5.11.1-2) in that Instrumentals have no left conjunct NP. Instead, InstrComit nda phrases expand the VP. They need not immediately follow the verb, and in fact they tend to come at or near the end of the sentences, following any PPs or object NPs that are present. This is because instrumental-comitative phrases often involve "new" information, which is generally positioned at the end of the string of postverbal constituents (§9.1.1). When an instrumental phrase happens to follow an NP, we must be careful to distinguish this sequence from NP conjunctions. Consider the instrumental example (167a). For reference, we include a typical comitative example as (167b), where the -nda is suffixed to the verb (and stays there if the direct object NP is extracted, §6.2.5). (167)

a.

b.

i-i haw-haw ga [nda kuuru] 3PlS-Impf tie-tie 3SgO [with skin] 'They tie it up with leather.' nda n kuboy-nda [toone-nte di] if 2SgS meet-with [aggressive-Partpl DefJ 'if you(Sg) meet with the aggressive one'

If the relevant string in (167a) were a conjunction ('They tie [it and leather]'), we would not normally get the 3SgO pronominal ga. Instead, we would get nga nda kuuru 'it and skin', beginning with a 3SgF pronoun, which regularly replaces simple 3Sg pronouns in left conjunct position (§8.4.2). When the NP itself is extracted from its position following (unsuffixed) nda, as in relative clauses and focus constructions, the nda remains stranded, usually at the end of the sentence. This is shown in (168), where we use trace notation. (168)

[woo yo kul] alkaafun [Dem PI all] spice i-i safari gi 3PlS-Impf cure 3P1O 'All those (ailments), it's (people) cure them with ίτ .'

daa Emph [nda [with [alkaafun

na^ Foe t] t] (a spice)]x [focus]

which they

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5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

Disregarding the proposed topic woo yo kul, note that alkaafun (a spice resembling fennelseed) is fronted as focus; the underlying instrumental phrase is nda alkaafun 'with spice'. As the free translation shows, English strands prepositions in a similar way (... with.). However, KCh postpositions like Dat se cannot be stranded in the fashion of nda. Because of their high text frequency, we call attention to combinations involving mise 'manner' and its variants, including deictic musoo 'this way, like this, thus' and interrogative mise foo~muso foo 'how?'. In all these adverbial uses, the full form of the phrase is of the type nda mise ... ('with manner ...'), plus some further ending or word. This sequence surfaces as such in adverbial phrases like nda musoo 'like this, in this way, thus'. However, the NP headed by mise is generally fronted, which strands nda in postverbal position. An example is (169), where foo One' in mise foo is apparently the numeral One' (here under the scope of negation) rather than the homophonous interrogative foo 'which?'. (169)

[saa di] fari ta [mise foo]x war na [time Def] field Top [manner one]^ 2P1S Neg ga jinaa [sanda diki woo yo] [nda 3SgO before [like dike Dem PI] [with 'So then, (concerning) the field, in no way have you (field) yet, like those dikes.'

lile-ndi prepare-Caus tj tx ] have prepared it

Here the widely separated mise foo One (=any) manner' and sentence-final nda form a single syntactic and semantic constituent, which can be reconstituted logically as nda [mise foo], literally 'with [manner one]'. The NP mise foo is fronted by focalization. Semantically, instrumental-comitative phrases do tend to have a particular association with one other referent mentioned in the sentential core. Instrumentals tend to be strongly associated with agents, representing a device (physical or abstract) which the agent uses to help carry out an action. Comitatives, on the other hand, express a more fluid relationship (association, accompaniment, co-presence) which may apply in principle to an agent, a patient, or other core referent. In practice, Instrumentals are overwhelmingly inanimate, while comitatives are overwhelmingly animate. Instrumental phrases with nda are very common, while comitative phrases with nda are less common, since postposition banda 'after' can also be used in a kind of comitative sense (§11.1.2).

5.11.4 nda in idioms and adverbial phrases There are numerous verbs which take a complement consisting of nda plus NP, which are best described in connection with verbal syntax and voice categories. In some cases, the nda is more or less suffixed to the verb, as in koy-nda 'deliver' (<'go with') and sawa-nda 'converge with, happen to come together' (<'be-equal with'). See §6.1.6 and §6.2.5 for discussion.

5.77 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs

119

More relevant to this chapter are fixed adverbial phrases in which nda has instrumental or comitative force. Examples in (170). (170)

phrase a. nda gomni nda laafiya b. ni nda subu c. nda cere d. nda kuna e. nda ni homo f. nda a fondo di

literal gloss 'with good-fortune' 'with peace' 'you(Sg) and morning' 'with friend' 'with in(-side)' 'with your head (=self)' 'with its road'

free gloss (greeting) (greeting) 'good morning!' (greeting) 'together, mutually' 'internally' 'by yourself (without help)' 'properly, thoroughly'

The forms in (170a) are phrases used in the casual greeting rituals that permeate everyday life. The form in (170b) is an example of another type of greeting keyed to time of day; for subu one could substitute hoy 'midday' or another time-of-day expression, and for 2Sg ni one could substitute 2P1 war ~ wor for plural addressee. In (170e), the possessor position (here given as 2Sg) is likewise a variable; the possessed form of 'head' is a compound reflexive pronoun (§10.2.1). nda is occasionally used with the deictic adverbials nee 'here' and hentu '(over) there', especially when the adverbial is followed by Approximative here, hence nda nee here 'around here' (171) and nda hentu here 'around there, somewhere over there'. (171)

korkor di ma si siiri [nda nee here] crate Def Subju Neg tilt [with here around] wala a ma si siiri [nda nee here] or 3SgS Subju Neg tilt [with here around] The (donkey) crate should not tilt over to herex, nor tilt over to herey.'

The two 'here' locations in (171) are distinct, as the speaker points to two imaginary locations (the two sides of the donkey), nee here by itself means '(around) here'. With deictic adverbials, nda usually indicates the measured distance from some reference location to the denoted location. This is clearer when both locations are overtly expressed, as in (172). (172)

a koy [nee nda 3SgS go [here and 'He went from here, to herey.'

nee] here]

5.11.5 NP disjunction (wala Or') The basic disjunctive particle is wala Or' (
120 5 Nominal inflection and N P syntax (173)

a.

b.

korkor woo yo ci bundu, garboy bundu, crate Dem PI be wood, wild-date wood, wala duwey bundu, wala daarey bundu or duwey wood, or jujube wood 'Those crates are (made of) wood, either date-palm wood, or duwey wood, or jujube wood.' no-o hin^ ka koy bilaa [kupkup wala ndooso]! 2SgS-Impf can Inf go without [machete or pick-ax]? 'Can you go (seeking limestone) without a machete or a pick-ax?'

In (173a) it is difficult to decide whether the reading is exclusive or inclusive. At the collective level, crates are constructed from wood of any of the three spp. mentioned. Individual crates are normally of one or the other, but the assertion would presumably be true even for crates made from mixed pieces of wood. In (173b), the disjunction 'machete or pick-ax' is under the scope of bilaa 'without'. Such negative contexts distinctly favor inclusive readings, which in this context are stronger than exclusive readings. Indications of approximate quantity, expressed with numerals as the two disjuncts, may have wala before the second (174a-b) or may run the two together (174c). (174)

a.

b.

c.

a-hinja wala a-taaci Absol-three or Absol-four 'three or four' nda yer duu [woo cinne] hinja wala a-taaci kul if 1P1S get [Dem peer] three or Absol-four all yer keydiya 1 PI rainy-season 'If we get three or four (rains) like that, our rainy season (will be OK).' a-a jow ije guu iddu 3SgS-Impf take child five six 'It takes five or six little pieces.'

In such disjunctions of numerals, the second numeral always takes Absol form. This is transparent in (174a-b), while iddu 'six' in (174c) has a zero Absol form (§4.5.1). The first numeral takes the Absol prefix under the same conditions as it would without the disjunction, thus a-hinja 'three' in (174a) but simple hinja following a noun in (174b). Phrases with wala can be used in catch-all "etcetera" expressions, as in (175). In this case, the denotation of the catch-all expression arguably contains that of the prior expression(s). For wala in the emphatic sense 'even...', see §8.5.9. (175)

a na ci a-a goro ka hantum 3SgS Neg be 3SgS-Impf sit Inf write [wala [woo di taka]] [or [Dem Def manner]] 'It isn't (as though) he sits and writes or that kind of thing.'

5.11 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs

121

5.11.6 Conjunction of adpositional phrases Conjunction of two postpositional phrases by nda 'and' tends to be avoided. If the two PPs have the same postposition, it is usually easy to avoid the undesired construction by directly conjoining the two NP complements under the scope of a single instance of the postposition. Schematically, 'in X and in Y' is reduced to 'in [X and Y]', as typically in English. However, there are of course situations where the two postpositions are distinct, in which case we can get conjoined PPs, as in (176). (176)

kooro yo dindi [[ay jine] [nda [ay hyena PI remain [[ISg in-front] [and [ISg 'There were hyenas in front of me and behind me.'

banda]]] behind]]]

In the case of two PPs with doo 'at the place of, chez', if the reference is to clearly distinct places rather to a single location, an unreduced conjunction is again possible, as in (177). (177)

yer ο naa [[ni doo] [nda [ay doo]]] 1P1S Impf eat [[2Sg chez] [and [ISg chez]]] 'We'll eat at your place and at my place.'

Contrast [ay nda ni] doo 'at [my and your] place' implying joint ownership of one home. Examples like (176-77) are produced somewhat grudgingly by informants in elicitation. The pattern is validated by occasional textual examples, but conjoined PPs appear to be limited to the more "nouny" postpositions, like jine and banda in (176), basically just special uses of body-part nouns, and doo in (177), which very often denotes a home or other place (not just a zone around the reference object). The most highly grammaticalized postpositions are Loc ra (and kuna), Dat se, and ga On', and I have been unable to elicit conjoined versions of any of them. For example, in (178a-b), the two NPs are directly conjoined under a single postposition. Informants rejected a proposed alternative version of (178a) ending in #... yene nda mana 'to me and to you'.

(178)

a-a ta noo ga [[ay na ni] se] 3SgS-Impf Top give 3SgO [[ISg and 2SgO] Dat] 'She will give it to me and you.' b. yee mey [[ni nda ga] ga] garow ISgSImpf have [[2Sg and 3SgO] on] credit Ί have a credit with you and him.' a.

We now consider conjunction of prepositional phrases. Since the conjunction nda 'and' and the Instr-Comit preposition nda 'with' are syntactically distinguishable, the issue arises whether they can be combined. Consider the translation equivalent of '... [[with X] [and [with Y]]]'. If nda 'and' can take instrumental-comitative phrases as its

122 5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax conjuncts, this would show up as #... [[nda X] [nda [nda YJJ] with two adjacent nda's. However, this is ungrammatical. In textual examples where this construction might be expected, we get the surface string... nda X nda Y, as in (179). (179)

ni rjga^ 2Sg SFoc nda [ni and [2Sg 'It's you who (things).'

o koy goy [nda [[[a wan di yo] Impf go work [with [[[3Sg Poss Def PI] wan di yo]] kul]] Poss Def PI]] all]] will go work, both with his (things) and (with) your

The bracketing of such examples is nonobvious and perhaps ambiguous. Clearly the first nda (directly after goy) is instrumental. In one analysis, following the bracketing shown in (179), this initial nda has scope over the following material, which is interpreted as an NP conjunction with a nda 'and' linking the two conjuncts. This can be schematized as ... [nda [X [nda Y]]]. There is no syntactic or semantic problem with this version. The second analysis takes the second nda as another instrumental preposition, parallel to the first nda, so that no actual conjunction is recognized. This can be schematized as... [nda X ] [nda Y]. This second analysis is also reasonable syntactically and semantically. To resolve the issue, we need to invoke parallel constructions with bilaa 'without' (
a.

b.

ay guna ga [bilaa taam] ISgS see 3SgO [without shoes] Ί saw him without shoes or a hat.' #ay guna ga [[bilaa taam] [nda ISgS see 3SgO [[without shoes] [and [=180a, but ungrammatical]

[bilaa fuula] [without hat] [bilaa fuula]]] [withouthat]]]

The data on Instr-Comit nda and bilaa 'without' show clearly that such preposition-like phrases cannot be conjoined with nda 'and'.

5.12 Locational Phrases and Temporal Phrases The concept "Locational Phrase" (LP) is useful in discussing certain syntactic-semantic issues, such as the (optional) complement of motion verbs (§11.1.1). An LP may be any of the morphosyntactic entities in (181).

5.12 Locational phrases and temporal phrases (181)

123

Locational Phrases a. a noun denoting a location (especially a place name or generic zone) b. a deictic adverbial c. a PP denoting a location (especially with Loc ra or kuna)

One might argue that (181a-b) are simply reduced forms of PPs. In (182) we give examples of LPs as complements of motion verbs (see §11.1.3). (182a) has a place name, (182b-c) show simple nouns denoting generic zones, (182d-e) illustrate demonstratives 'here' and 'there', and (182f-g) contain PPs with doo 'at (the place of)' and Loc ra. (182)

a.

ay koy tumbutu ISgS go Timbuktu Ί went to Timbuktu.' b. m fatta ganji 2SgS exit wilderness 'You emerged from the wilderness.' c. no-o koy yoobu 2SgS go market 'You (will) go to market.' d. farm foo woo daa kaa hun nee ka koy... clearing one Dem Emph Rel leave here Inf go ... 'this very same clearing which starts here and goes (extends) to ...' e. yee koy doodi ISgSImpf go there Ί (will) go there.' f. yer o koy [mobil-koy di ye doo] 1P1S Impf go [vehicle-boss Def PI chez] 'We go to the house of the vehicle owners.' g. ay fatta [barjgu woo ra] yee koy [yer doo] ISgS exit [paddy Dem Loc] ISgSImpf go [1P1 chez] Ί left the paddy to go (back) to our (=my) home.'

The generic-zone type seen in (182b-c) involves a simple noun functioning adverbially. The abbreviated pattern occurs chiefly with a small set of nouns. In addition to 'wilderness' and 'market' we may mention koyra 'town' and huu 'home'. The construction is like that in English He went home (downtown, to market). Possible further examples are fari 'field; do manual farm work' and hoo 'hunt', as in koy fari 'go to the field(s)' and koy hoo 'go hunting'. However, fari and hoo can also be used as verbs ('do manual farm work' and 'hunt'), and with koy 'go' it is possible to construe them either as nouns or verbs. Although generic-zone nouns like ganji 'wilderness' in (182b) function as spatial adverbiale, like Locative PPs, replacing them by overt PPs can give a more specific spatial nuance and treats the reference location as an object rather than as an activity zone. Compare (183a) with simple huu 'home', and (183b) with Locative PP huu di ra.

124 5 Nominal inflection and NP syntax

(183)

a.

b.

ay too huu ISgS attain house Ί arrived home.' ay too huu ISgS attain house Ί arrived in the house.'

di Def

ra Loc

Valid use of (183b) requires entry into the house, while (183a) could simply mean that the agent reached its outer grounds. The concept of 'Temporal Phrase" (TP) I have in mind is parallel to that of Locational Phrase just described. As in other languages, many temporal expressions are parasitic on locationals. Representative TPs are moreyda (ciino) '(right) now', manna 'last year', and the PP jiqgar di banda 'after the holiday'. TPs do not commonly function as required complements of particular verbs, but a TP is the typical complement, for example, of jaa 'since' and hal 'until' (§5.9.8, §11.1.5, §9.5.6).

Chapter 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation

6.1 Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases 6.1.1 Verbs, quasi-verbs, and the referentiality of subject NPs Sentences with ordinary verbs contain at least the syntactic core shown in (184). (184)

(referential) subject NP - MAN morphemes - verb

The MAN (mood-aspect-negation) block contains from zero to two morphemes, zero being interpreted as perfective aspect, indicative mood, and positive (=absence of negation). The nonzero MAN morphemes are described in chapter 7. An example illustrating (184) is (185), whose MAN morpheme is Impf (imperfective).

(185)

[bar d£ o [man DefJ Impf 'The man will go.'

koy go

There are a few types of predication which appear to diverge from (184). The main culprits are copula-like elements which do not permit a preceding referential subject NP, do not allow separate MAN morphemes, or both. We will refer to any such defective predicator as a "quasi-verb," but each type has its own particular pattern of defecti vity. Locational quasi-verbs goo 'be' and its negative counterpart sii 'not be, be absent' are usually followed by a Locational Phrase (§5.12), but do not co-occur with preceding MAN morphemes. Arguably they are themselves just stressed versions of MAN morphemes, Impf o ~ go and its negation ImpfNeg si. In this analysis, the deviation from structure (184) is not the absence of an MAN slot, rather the absence of a verb. See §7.1.2 for detailed discussion and examples. Two quasi-verbs have copula-like functions. One is equational £i, which occurs in the construction X ci Υ 'Χ is (a) Y.' Si is not far from being a regular transitive verb, but there are some restrictions on its combination with MAN morphemes. The second construction is of the type Υ nono 'it is (a) Y,' with implied but unexpressed referential "subject" NP. nono is incompatible with MAN marking and there are some difficulties in modeling the syntax of this construction. See §7.1.1 for details on Si and nono. There is another similar verb, bara 'exist, be'. In copular and existential functions, it is essentially a regular verb and can be accommodated by schema (184). However, there is another bara construction where it is arguably another defective quasi-verb. Here bara occurs sentence-initially, followed either by a subjunctive clause in obligational sense 'must' (bara [X ma koy] = 'X must go'), or less often by an

126 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation indicative complement. In both the subjunctive and indicative types, one could argue that bara is an impersonal predicative element that requires a clausal complement but does not itself co-occur with either a subject NP or preceding MAN markers. For detailed discussion and examples of bara see §7.1.3. The clause-initial complementizer bara 'since ... , because ...' (§9.5.7) has no verb-like formal traits (referential subject, MAN marking). This completes our brief survey of "quasi-verbs" which depart in some way from the canonical clause structure (184) while possessing some attributes of verbs. Only in the cases of the one-place copula nono and the clause-initial impersonal bara do we appear to have systematic absence of a referential subject NP. It remains to consider whether any verbs, perhaps weather verbs or the like, have expletive (overt but nonreferential) 3Sg subjects, like it in it is raining. I know of no clear cases of expletive subjects in KCh. 'It is raining,' for example, is expressed as 'the rain is striking' (baana di o kar), and other verbs of weather or other ambient circumstance likewise have referential subjects; see §11.2. For one verb, gar 'find', a case can be made for a 3Sg expletive subject in one construction roughly translatable as 'it happens (happened) to be the case that ...', but I do not favor this interpretation. Consider (186). (186)

nda a gar [yee ta hambur], if 3SgS find [ISgSImpf Put fear], ay si here ka yee moo ISg ImpfNeg turn Inf return also 'If it had happened that I was afraid, I wouldn't have turned to go back.' (or: 'Had I been afraid,...')

Literally this construction is of the type '3Sg found (that) X,' where X is a clause expressing some state of affairs. However, the 'it' in the free English translation of (186) is arguably coindexed with the (extraposed) clause 'that I was afraid', rather than being a nonreferential expletive. In KCh, I think that 3SgS a in (186) is referential, but in another fashion, denoting a state of affairs established by the immediately prior discourse. I would paraphrase (186) then as 'if it (=situation) had found that I was afraid,...' Compare sentences like Lost winter found me in Brazil, occasionally used in English, and more idiomatic in KCh. Of course, this analysis motivates the use of the verb 'find'. The 'find' construction can be used in a similar sense with obviously referential subjects, as in (187). (187)

nda ay gar [haya goo^ a if ISgS find [thing be~ 3Sg 'if I find that there is something in it (=limestone)'

ra] Loc]

In (188), where we expect two contrasting impersonal a gar ... clauses, the second switches from the plain 3SgS a to a demonstrative with Topic marking.

6. l Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases (188)

127

a-a gar ay fatta, 3SgS-Impf find ISgS exit, woo bine^ o gar ngi ta na tun Dem Top Impf find 3P1F Top Neg arise 'It happens that I've left, whereas it happens that they have not yet arisen.'

More literally: 'It (=my situation in the field) finds that I have left, (while) this (=their situation in the town) finds that they have not (yet) gotten up.' A free context fleshed out with contextual information: Ί have done my work in the field and gone home before they have even gotten out of bed.' The fact that the second clause begins with the contrastive woo bine 'as for that' rather than the same 3SgS a seen in the first clause is a further indication that the subject of gar is referential even when it denotes a situation rather than a concrete entity. For a gar in antecedent clauses in counterfactual conditionals, see §9.5.1. There is one further construction, used in proverb-like generalizations, which lacks a verb and MAN marking. The structure is of the type '[every X] and itsx Y' and means 'every X has its own (unique) Y.' An example is (189); compare Spanish en coda tierra su uso. (189)

[ganda foo kul] nda qgu [country one all] and 3ReflSg 'Every country has its own (unique) custom.'

kani custom

di Def

However, occasionally a fuller form with final identificational quasi-verb nono is attested, as in (190). So type (189) is best analysed as a truncated form of a nono construction. (190)

[[boro foo kul] nda [ngu neere taka di]] nono [[person one all] and [3ReflSg selling manner Def]] it-is 'Everyone has his own (unique) manner of selling.'

6.1.2 Underived simple intransitives Intransitive verbs are those that characteristically occur with a subject NP but no direct object. We temporarily set aside certain verbs with other types of complement (postpositional phrases, instrumental-comitative phrases), discussed in other sections below. Examples of intransitives with no obligatory complements of any type are meer 'be ugly', herey 'be hungry', horon '(food) be bitter; (person) be in pain', goro 'sit', bun 'die',JUT 'run', and carjgu '(hen) squawk'. These verbs range from enduring adjectival qualities to abrupt events or actions. Expressions of bodily experience (Ί am hungry,' Ί feel cold,' Ί feel sad') show up as simple intransitives (Ί hunger'), transitives ('hunger afflicts me'), or as existential-locationals ('hunger is on me'). In some cases the same stem occurs in all of these frames.

128 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation For cases where the intransitive use of a verb is arguably derived from a lexical transitive, see §6.2.1 (zero derivation) and §6.2.3 (Mediop suffix -ηώ").

6.1.3 Underived simple transitives Lexical transitives include the usual agentive verbs of impact, production, and treatment ('hit', 'cut', 'break', 'tie', 'make', 'cook', 'treat medically'). The syntax is exemplified in (191). yer o kar 1P1S Impf hit 'We will hit them.'

(191)

gi 3P1O

A sample of other lexical transitives, hinting at the semantic types involved: guna 'see', jisi 'put down, set', duu 'get, obtain, get, earn', hin 'master, overcome', too 'reach, attain', garsaka ~ gassaka 'detest (person)', jaabi 'answer (person)', kakow 'dispute with, challenge verbally', kallasi '(God) protect (person)', kate ~ kata 'bring, fetch', and kuboy- kubey 'meet, encounter'. As this array suggests, two-argument event types of many kinds are structured as simple transitives, with the more agentive or animate argument as subject. For example, perception verbs like guna 'see' are simple transitives, kallasi 'protect' is one of a number of stems, generally used in oaths, for which yerkoy 'God' is the usual subject. Transitives which regularly have inanimate subjects operating on animate objects are rare, given the strong preference for animate subjects. However, when the "inanimate" referent is represented as an active agent, we can get such structures. The clearest cases involve diseases and similar afflictions, which can be expressed in the form 'X afflict Y' where X = affliction and Υ = victim. The usual KCh verbs in this type of expression are duu 'get' and din 'take, seize', as in (192).

(192)

a.

b.

maa gga duu ni? what? SFoc get 2SgO 'What (disease, etc.) [focus] has afflicted you?' ceefe gga din ga fever 2Foc take 3SgO "The fever (=malaria) [focus] has afflicted her.'

A handful of transitive verbs require that the direct object be coindexed with the subject. For discussion of such "reflexive verbs" see §10.2.3. Inspection of texts may suggest incorrectly that motion verbs such as koy 'go' and hun 'leave (depart)' are simple transitives. Typical VPs are koy yoobu 'go to (the) market' and hun bamako 'leave Bamako'. However, the postverbal NPs here cannot be replaced by e.g. 3SgO ga, as in #koy ga 'go to it'. Further analysis suggests that the NPs here function syntactically as LPs (Locational Phrases, §5.12). In effect, they function as PPs minus the relevant postposition (usually Loc)—an omission that is

6.1 Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases

129

common enough with place names and generic locationals like 'market'. Overt PPs are also attested as complements of these verbs, as in (193). However, the motion verb too 'arrive' (also 'attain, reach') can be a true transitive. (193)

joijkoto^ o hun [hari ra] lungfish Impf leave [water Loc] 'The lungfish left (=emerged from) the water.'

6.1.4 Ditransitives and other verbs with dative The prototypical ditransitives taking both a direct object and a dative postpositional phrase are noo 'give', cerbu 'show', and bar 'say'. The recipient of the gift, demonstration, or information is dative. Examples in (194).

(194)

a.

b.

c.

d.

/ noo ga [yer se] 3P1S give 3SgO [1P1 Dat] "They gave it to us.' ay bar ga [i se] ISgS say 3SgO [3P1 Dat] Ί said it to them.' ay bar [i se] ISgS say [3P1 Dat] Ί said to them, " ...'" (with quotation) a cerbu ga^ yene 3SgS show 3SgO ISgDat 'She showed it to me.'

For noo 'give' and to a lesser extent cerbu 'show', an alternative construction involving two "direct object" NPs is possible if the recipient is a first or second person pronoun. This alternative construction is regular with ISg or 2Sg recipient. See §9.1.2 for discussion and examples. To my knowledge, no other verb allows this double-object construction. Other verbs which commonly take both a direct object "O" and a dative "D" are bini 'importune Ο (person) for D (commodity)', sufur 'rent Ο to D', hii 'lend Ο to D', and neere 'sell Ο to D'. sufur and hii are also used in a different case frame, with direct object and a PP with ga 'by, from', to represent these transactions from the perspective of the renter or borrower. Compare (195a) with (195b). (195)

a.

b.

a sufur yene mobil 3SgS rent ISgDat vehicle 'He rented me a car.' ay sufur [a ga] mobil ISgS rent [3Sg from] car Ί rented a car from him.'

130 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation neere 'sell' has the syntax of (195a). The counterpart from the purchaser's perspective is expressed by dey 'buy' with the syntax of (195b). A handful of verbs involving complex interpersonal actions relations regularly take a Dat object "D" but no direct object. These include gaara 'bless D' and hinje 'pardon D'. In addition to verbs which more or less require a dative indirect object, there are of course many others which can be optionally expanded by adding a dative PP to the basic case frame. Indeed, almost any action verb can be extended with a dative phrase in the sense 'for the benefit of D'. Some intransitives which take optional dative complements rather more often are those in (196). (196)

verb guma kaan Rama kaan

intransitive gloss gloss with Dat (D = Pat) 'be affordable' 'be beneficial to D' 'be sweet, nice' 'be pleasing to D' 'be angry' 'be angry at D' 'be sweet, nice' 'be pleasing to D'

A transitive verb with an interesting dative extension is bey 'know' in (197). (197)

yee bey ISgSImpf know Ί am grateful to you.'

ga 3SgO

mana 2SgDat

This is literally Ί know it [for you].' 6.1.5 Verbs with postpositional complements (ga, Locatives) Certain intransitive verbs commonly or obligatorily take postpositional phrases with ga 'by, from, out of (§5.9.5, §11.1.2). In the preceding section, we noted that dey 'buy', and the verbs meaning 'rent', 'lend' when phrased from the viewpoint of the renter or borrower, take a direct object and a ga PP. Some intransitives which often take ga complements are listed in (198), indicating their meaning with ga and (if they also occur without ga) their simple intransitive sense. The three 'be angry' verbs in (198) less commonly take Dat instead of ga complement. Notably absent from (198) is hun 'leave, depart from (location)'. The ablative force is built into the verb, which takes a Loc PP or other Locational Phrase (§11.1.23).

6. l Subcategorization for objects and adpositional phrases (198)

verb dukur

intransitive gloss 'be angry'

gaba

—

hottu jeesi

'(thing) be hot, spii 'tilt, lean over' 'fall'

kam kaari

key kula

lafa lagara nama sika susum

waasu

—

'stand, stop' '(not) give a damn'

— — 'be angry'

— — 'boil'

— yaafa yatjgara —

131

gloss with pa (G = NP with g ) 'be angry at G' 'hold onto G' '(situation) be hard on G' 'lean on G, fall over on G' 'attack G, descend in attack on G 'wait for G' 'settle on G, be ready for G' '(not) care (=give a damn) about G' 'be right next to G' 'stick (adhere) to G' 'be angry at G' 'suspect G, have doubts about G' 'move away from G' 'be angry at G' '(God) forgive G' Outsmart G, exploit G (= person)'

Certain verbs commonly take locational phrases (LPs) as complements. Among the common LPs are adverbs or PPs with Loc ra or kuna. hirow ~ hurow 'enter' and fatta 'exit' regularly take LPs, as in (199). (199)

a.

b.

ay fatta [baggu woo ra] ISgS exit [floodplain Dem Loc] Ί exited that (rice) field.' yee hirow [a ra] ISgSImpf enter [3Sg Loc] Ί enter it.'

Stance verbs like floro 'sit', and especially the locational quasi-verbs goo 'be' and sii 'not be' (§7.1.2), are often little more than semantically "light verbs" fleshing out an LP which is the main point of the predication. The transitive equivalent of goo is dam 'do, make', which translates as 'put' in combination with a locational like doodi 'there', see (200).

(200)

a.

b.

ay dam ga ISgS make 3SgO Ί did it; I made it.' ay dam ga ISgS put 3SgO Ί put it there.'

doodi there

nimsi 'regret' can take as complement either an LP or an instrumental-comitative phrase with nda.

132 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation 6.1.6 Verbs with instrumental-comitative complements (nda) A number of verbs commonly co-occur with instrumental-comitative complements consisting of nda and a following NP (§5.11). In §6.2.5, below, we consider cases where nda is fused to the verb, creating a derived transitive verb. In the present section we examine cases where the nda phrase need not be adjacent to the verb, or where the meaning of the VP is transparently compositional. The distinction between these ... VERB ... [nda X] constructions and the derivational fusions of the type ... VERB-nda ... X discussed in §6.2.5 may be gradient. Verbs occurring in the former construction are listed in (201); in the glosses, Ο = direct object and I = InstrComit (nda) object. (201)

verb a. baar waafaku b. bisa c. baa-ndi ere goro h tl

huga kaalafu kokoro seede-terey waay ton

gloss w.o. nda 'swap (two things)' '(two persons) agree' 'go past, continue on' — 'change, flip' (intr.) 'sit' 'ask (inquire of) O' II

II

— — 'be recent, be last' 'bear witness' 'espy' (with ga) 'be full'

gloss w. nda 'swap Ο for Γ '(person) agree with I (=person)' 'surpass I, be -er than Γ 'prefer Ο to Γ 'turn into (=become) Γ 'expect Γ Ί) ask Ο about Γ '2) ask Ο for I (=thing)' 'work intensely at I (e.g., job)' 'dispute with I, contradict Γ 'end up with Γ 'bear witness to I (=event)' 'become aware of Γ 'be full of Γ

In (20la), the variant with nda complement is more precise than the simple variant, which lumps two entities into a single grammatical relation. In (201b), bisa is usually combined serially with another verb to generate the basic comparative construction (see §9.7.8). In (201c), the more common sense for the /h / construction is 'ask Ο about Γ, illustrated in (202a), while the sense 'ask Ο for Γ is more reliably expressed by a different construction with the object role expressed as a PP with ga (202b). (202)

a.

b.

ay h ga [nda ISgS ask 3SgO [with Ί asked her about rain.' maa na n h what? Foe 2SgS ask 'What, did you ask Jeff for /, ?'

baana] rain] /"Jeff [J

ga] on]

6.2 Derived voice forms

133

6.1.7 Cognate objects Both intransitive and transitive verbs occasionally occur with a cognate object, i.e., a suffixed or zero-derived nominalization of the same verb stem. This construction typically has special rhetorical functions. The cognate object is often focalized or relativized. Examples in (203).

(203)

koy di kaa ay koy going Def Rel ISgS go 'the going that I went' (i.e., 'with all my traveling') b. koosu na i-i koosu slaughtering Foe 3PlS-Impf slaughter 'a slaughtering [focus] is what they slaughter you'

a.

war 2P1O

(203b) refers to unscrupulous merchants: 'They'll skin you alive (with high prices).'

6.2 Derived voice forms 6.2.1 Zero derivation (simple verbs with variable valency) Here we discuss cases where the same verb stem is used with variable valency. In §4.3.2 we discussed similar cases where a stem may be used as a verb or noun without derivational affixes. Subsequent sections will describe overt morphological derivations which change valency. In (204), S and Ο stand for the referents functioning as subject and direct object, respectively, in the transitive case. (204)

verb a. here feer fombu b. fur neere c. fuuney qaarey Bin d. kaa

intransitive gloss Ό change; flip' [intr] Ό be open' Ό (nuts) be cracked, hatch' Ό be released, be let go' Ό be for sale' 'S search, do a search' 'S beg' 'S drink' 'S come'

transitive gloss (O = direct object) 'S flip O' 'S open O' 'S crack O (nuts)' 'S release, drop, abandon O' 'S sell O' 'S search through O, examine O' 'S beg from O, live off of O' 'S drink O' 'S become (turn into) O'

In (204a-b), the grammatical subject of the intransitive corresponds to the direct object of the transitive. In (204a), the intransitive events or states can occur in the absence of an external agent, so we might argue that the transitive usage is the semantic factitive-causative of the intransitive. On the other hand, in (204b) the intransitive events or states strongly imply the presence of an (unexpressed) agent, so

134 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation we could argue that here the intransitive usage is a semantic passive based on the transitive. In (204c), the intransitive omits the direct object of the transitive, so the intransitive can be thought of as a kind of antipassive. In (204d), the connection between 'come* and 'become' is less transparent, but English come to be, and the use of motion verbs to mean 'become' in many other languages (Fr. devenir, Spanish volverse), makes the connection more reasonable. KCh kaa 'become' is formally a transitive verb, and the direct object can be a pronoun like 3SgO ga, as in (205).

(205)

ay kaa ga ISgS become 3SgO Ί became it.'

6.2.2 Factitive-Causative -ndi In the previous section we showed that some verbs can change valency (argument structure) without altering their own form. However, most valency changes involving addition or suppression of an argument NP are encoded morphologically on the verb. The suffix -ndi is used both to mark the addition of an argument NP, as in the FactCaus (this section), and to mark the suppression of an argument NP, as in the Mediopfassive] (following section). The phonology of both -ndi suffixes is generally regular; for minor irregularities in stem shapes, see §3.8.6. I use the label "Fact[itive]" when the underlying intransitive eventuality is an adjectival state (206a), and "Caus[ative]" when the eventuality is an action, whether intransitive (206b) or transitive (206c). The distinction is not important morphologically in KCh. (206)

stem a. beer oiiaa oirey b. cow derey dira c. bey gaa tenje fiin

gloss 'be big' 'be small, few' 'be red' 'read, study' 'be lost' 'walk, travel' 'know' [tr] 'eat' [tr] 'face* [tr] 'drink' [tr]

Fact-Caus beer-ndi iina-ndi cirey-ndi cOw-ndi derey-ndi dira-ndi bey-ndi naa-ndi tenje-ndi nin^ndi

gloss 'magnify, honor' 'make small' 'make red' 'educate, teach' 'lose, waste' 'cause to walk' 'instruct, inform' 'feed, let eat' Orient (in a direction)' 'moisten, sprinkle on'

function Fact Fact Fact Caus Caus Caus Caus Caus Caus Caus

With transitive input (206c), we might expect the -ndi form to be doubly transitive, as in Ύ eat Z' —> 'X cause Υ to eat Z.' In fact, these -ndi forms commonly appear in texts as simple transitives with the lower subject Υ surfacing (as direct object) and the lower object Z omitted. However, it is possible (and semantically reasonable) to specify both Υ and Ζ. Ζ is generally expressed either as an instrumental

6.2 Derived voice forms

135

phrase with nda, as typically with nin^ndi 'let drink, sprinkle, irrigate' (207a), or as an unmarked NP following Y, as typically with naa-ndi 'feed' (207b) and bey-ndi 'let know, inform' (207c). (207c) shows extraction (fronting) of Υ to become the clauseinitial interrogative 'what?'. (207)

a.

ay fiin^ndi ga [nda hari] ISgS drink-Caus 3SgO [with water] Ί let him drink some water' (or: Ί irrigated it [earth] with water') b. ay ijaa-ndi gi bita ISgS eat-Caus 3P1O porridge Ί fed her some porridge' c. maa na n bey-ndi ga ? what? Foe 2SgS know-Caus 3SgO ? 'What, did you teach her (=inform her of) tx ?

Causative -ndi forms from input transitives are generally homophonous to mediopassive -ndi derivatives from the same verbs. An example is qaa-ndi 'be eaten, be edible'. In cases where the simple stem has variable valency (§6.2.1), some care is needed in identifying the valency value of the input to the -ndi derivative. Consider daabu-ndi 'cover (put a cover on), dress'. The simple stem daabu can be intransitive 'be covered, closed' or transitive 'cover, enclose'. It would seem in this case that the intransitive valency value is the input to the causative derivation. An alternative way to express a causative sense is to embed a clause under kate 'bring', in the sense 'bring it about that ...'. This analytic construction allows the embedded clause to retain its grammatical categories, such as negation, which are lost in the morphological factitive-causative derivation. See (548) in §9.6.1. 6.2.3 Mediopassive -ndi By Mediop[assive] is meant an agentless detransitivized verb with no expressed agent. There is normally an implied agent in the sense that the event ('be sold', 'be seen') cannot be accomplished without an external agent. As noted in the preceding section, the suffix -ndi is used for this valency-reducing function (with lexical transitives), as well as for valency-increasing factitive-causative function (with lexical intransitives and a few weak transitives). Some Mediop examples are in (208), below. Mediop -ndi covers the full aspectual range: individual event ('the tea will be poured now'), resultative ('the gift has been given'), and potential ('the mountain is visible'). Correspondingly, the suppression of the agent may be due to mystery ('my wallet was stolen'), to obviousness or irrelevance ('the tea has been poured'), or to genericness ('the mountain is visible'). The potential reading with generic agent is most common with negation, as in (209).

136 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation (208)

stem a.

dey

dookorey duu gar

guna tiisa

jow soo tibi b.

(209)

bar noo

gloss 'buy' 'disdain' 'get, earn' 'find' 'see' 'make, fix' 'take away* 'pour' 'put on (stove)' 'say' 'give'

[woo di] [Dem DefJ 'That isn't said.'

si

ImpfNeg

Mediop

gl<

dey-ndi dookorey-ndi duu-ndi gar-ndi guna-ndi tilsa-ndi jow-ndi soo-ndi tibi-ndi har-ndi noo-ndi

'b< bought, for sale' 'be 'tx disdained' 'be 'b< 'be obtained, available' 'b< 'be found, located' *b< 'be seen, be visible' 'b( fixed' 'be 'b< 'be taken (e.g. stolen)' 'tx poured (decanted)' 'be 'b< 'be put on (stove)' 'b< said, sayable' 'be '(g '(gift) be given'

har-ndi ^^ say-Mediop

With ditransitive simple stem (208b), the subject of the mediopassive normally corresponds to the direct (not dative) object of the simple stem.

6.2.4 Minor uses of -ndi In a few cases, a segmentable -ndi functions neither as factitive-causative nor as mediopassive. In one case, -ndi acts as a denominal verbalizer: ciwsi ~ cipsi 'sacrificial ram' (
6.2 Derived voice forms

137

6.2.5 Suffixation of -nda to verb stem In §6.1.6 we discussed verbs which commonly take an instrumental-comitative complement (nda 'with' plus NP), perhaps separated from the verb by an intervening constituent. There are also some combinations where the -nda seems to act as a suffix on the verb, creating a derived transitive. The two constructions can be schematized as in (210a-b). (210)

a. b.

[subjectNP] [subject NP]

V V-nda

... ...

[nda [NP]] [NP]

There is no clearly audible difference between (210a) and (210b) when no other constituents intervene, but when there is such an intervening constituent the distinction is clear. It is probable that the type (210b) is historically derived from (210a) by redrawing of word boundaries. (210b) is typical of comitative function ('along with, together with'), whereas the instrumental function of ('by means of) is normally expressed as (210a). The examples which we ascribe to (21 Ob), with derivational verb suffix -nda, are given in (211). "S" and "O" denote the referents functioning as subject and direct object, respectively, in the derived form. (211) a.

b.

stem koy kaa yee gey fey hima kubey sawa tilasu

gloss derivative 'S go' koy-nda 'S come' kaa-nda 'S go or come back' yee-nda 'S endure, be long time' gey-nda 'S diverge; S divorce O' fey-nda '(ought to ...)' hima-nda 'S encounter O' kubey-nda '(two entities) be equal' sawa-nda Ό be necessary' tilasu-nda

gloss 'S take O, deliver O' 'S bring O' 'S take or bring back O' 'S be long away from O' 'S be separable from O' 'S resemble O' 'S encounter O' 'S coincide with O' 'S need O'

Sentential examples showing other postverbal constituents (e.g. datives) intervening between -nda and the direct object are given in (212). (212)

a.

b.

c.

ay kaa-nda mana attee ISgS come-with 2SgDat tea Ί have brought some tea for you(Sg).' yee ta fey-nda mana [ni w nde di] ISgSImpf Put diverge-with 2SgDat [2Sg wife Def] Til stay away from your wife for you.' yee hima-nda a se hay si ISgSImpf resemble 3Sg Dat dog Ί resemble a dog for him (=from his point of view).'

138 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation There are similar examples involving koy-nda, yee-nda, gey-nda, sawa-nda, and tilasu-nda. For kubey-nda I have no example of the type seen in (212), since with object separated from verb by an intervening dative, informants preferred to use the synonymous underived kubey. The fusion of -nda with the verb is strong in the case of the motion verbs in (211 a). Note that in cases like 'S brings O', both subject and object are in most cases jointly in motion. The apparent historical shift from 'S came [with O]' to 'S brought O' is therefore straightforward and is known from many languages. The remaining examples, lumped together in (2lib), are fairly diverse in type. Aside from the smallish number of verbs affected, we notice considerable semantic divergence. In the case of hima, the simple stem is a serial verb used in the Ought to' construction, which has little connection to 'resemble'. Note that tilasu-nda has a different logical relation to the corresponding simple stem than do the other examples. When a causative is made from VERB-nda Y, we get VERB-Caus X [nda Y], where nda 'with' is liberated from the verb and forms an independent constituent with its (comitative) complement NP, generally not immediately adjacent to the causative verb. Compare kubey-nda 'encounter' in (21 Ib) with causative kuboy-ndi ... nda 'cause to meet' in (213); cf. beginning of §5.11.3, above, (kubey and kuboy are variants of the same stem.) The complement of nda has been extracted by relativization in (213a), but this is irrelevant to the point at hand. (213)

a.

b.

hay di kaa yerkoy kuboy-ndi_^ ey [nda 17 ci woo yo thing Def Rel God meet-CauT ISgO [with t ] be Dem PI "The thing, that, God caused me to meet with f, was those (people).' yerkoy taalaa na kuboy-ndi^ ey [nda ga] God be-He-exalted Neg meet-CausT ISg [with 3SgO] 'God, may He be exalted, has not caused me to run into him.'

In Timbuktu, bey 'know' does not normally take the form bey-nda 'be aware of. Instead, bey is usually followed by a PP with postposition ga On', hence bey a ga 'be aware of it'.

6.3 Compounds 6.3.1 Noun-verb compounds Noun-verb compounds are rare, but they are easy to spot on grounds of word order (NV) and semantic skewing. The examples I know of are in (214). The compounds function syntactically as verbs. (214)

N-V cpd. hew-gumba-ndi hari-gur

gloss 'smother' 'draw water'

gloss of N gloss of simple V 'wind, air' — 'water* 'draw water'

6.3 Compounds

139

The verb hammee 'fast (from food)' is perhaps still synchronically recognizable as hawjnee 'tie-mouth' (for assimilation of w to m see §3.6.3). This would then be a V-N rather than N-V structure, functioning as an intransitive verb. There are many other combinations which have some resemblance to such N-V compounds as (214). These are cases where the second stem is a verb, which is followed by an Adj or (nominalizing) Abstr ending. The sequence N-V-Adj can theoretically be bracketed either as [N-V]-Adj, with a N-V compound feeding into adjectivization, or as N-[V-Adj], with a noun stem added as compounding initial to an already adjectivized verb. Likewise for the sequence N-V-Abstr. In the cases known to me, the inner N-V compound is not independently attested, and in view of the productivity of N-N (and "loose" NP-N) compounds I am strongly inclined to favor the N-[V-Adj] (and N-[V-Abstr]]) bracketings. Examples in (215-16). Zero-derived nominals (217) are less easy to bracket. (215)

N-rV-AdjI kamba-waaw-o kamba-send-o kuuru-koon-0 moo-laaw-o

analysis hand-[left-Adj] hand-[difficult-Adj] skin-[mere-Adj] eye-[?-Adj]

free gloss 'left-handed' 'miser, tightfisted one' 'naked' 'cross-eyed'

(216)

N-fV-Abstrl bomo-haw-ey bine-dumb-oy gaa-feer-ey moo-yeen-ey tene-kaan-ey tira-feer-ey

head-[tie-Abstr] heart-[cut-Abstr] body-[open-Abstr] eye-[cold-Abstr] luck-[good-Abstr] talisman-[open-Abstr]

'astonishment* 'heartbeat, pulse' 'joy' 'self-control, calmness' 'good luck' 'religious ceremony'

N-V-0 bomo-bere hari-nin junubu-jow

head-flip-0 water-drink-0 sin-take-0

'rite reaffirming marriage' 'water drinking' 'commission of sins'

(217)

For morphological noun-verb compounds in a less common pattern where the verb functions as a modifier of the noun, see §4.6.8. 6.3.2 Verb-verb compounds It is very easy to combine VPs, by putting the second one in infinitival VP form (beginning with Inf ka); see §9.7.1. This can be used to combine two VPs, both of reasonable internal complexity. It can also be used to combine a specialized serial verb with an internally complex second VP (§9.7.2). The limiting case is a tightly-knit combination of two verb stems linked by ka with no further frills, or with following postverbal material (direct object, PPs) that

140 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation appears to be attached to the verb-combination as a whole rather than just to the second verb. In such combinations, which we refer to as verb-verb compounds, the order of elements is usually fixed, and the compound as a whole can be nominalized or form other verbal derivatives. A common example is sar ka julli 'do somersaults', with sar 'jump' and a second verb that is not attested outside of this compound. Other examples generally involve paired actions that commonly occur together in some activity (cf. English cut and run). That the system is potentially productive is shown by (218). (218)

a na ci [jokoro ka sakara] nono 3SgS Neg be [turn-over Inf thin-out] it-is 'It isn't turning over (earth) and thinning out (seedlings).'

The speaker's point is that planting millet by digging up a little (flat) earth and sowing seeds is not combined into a single agricultural method with another procedure by which millet seedlings are grown on the upper bank of a seasonal pond and then transplanted lower down as the water evaporates. The addressee had misunderstood this and (218) was offered as a clarification. The nonce compound jokoro ka sakara functions in (218) as a zero-derived nominalization. Another textual example in (219), where the verb-verb compound is nominalized, and takes a preceding possessor ('you') and a following Def di.

(219)

ni ta [koy ka 2Sg Top [go and 'your going and coming'

kaa] come]

di Def

6.3.3 Centripetal -kate A verbal derivational suffix -kate indicates motion toward the deictic center. The most common combination is yee-kate 'come back', cf. yee 'return, go back'. Further examples where the centripetal motion is simultaneous with the motion denoted by the verb are too-kate 'arrive here', maan-kate 'come close (to here') from maan 'approach' and kabey-kate 'bring back'. When the verb denotes a non-motion activity, or a noncentripetal motion, the sense is '[verb] and come'. Allowing for a discourseinternal (not "here-and-now") deictic center, a gloss '[verb] and go back' is sometimes possible. Examples of -kate are in (220). (220)

a.

b.

no-o koy dogo-kate [hayni woo ra] 2SgS-Impf go uproot-Centrip [millet Dem Loc] 'You go and uproot some of that millet (and come back with it).' bii daa nafc—' ay hun-kate i doo ^ yesterday Emph Foe ISgS leave-Centrip 3P1 chez 'It was just yesterday [focus] that I got up and went back to their place.'

6.4 Verb stem reduplication 141 c.

i na yee-kate [ggu-ye banda koon] 3P1S Neg return-Centrip[3Ref!Pl back bare] "They (=donkeys) have not come back (with) their backs empty.'

When the verb is transitive, the combination with -kate remains transitive and the direct object follows the entire verb (220a). Likewise, in (220b) the PP / doo must be construed with hun. In (221), both direct and indirect object NPs follow the entire derived verb. (221)

noo gi [A se] a give 3P1O [A Dat] 3SgS [attey ßney di [tea gear Def 'Give them to A (=a girl), making equipment.'

ma kabey-kate [yer se] Subju bring-Centrip [1P1 Dat] yo] PI] so she may bring back to us the tea-

So -kate has no effect on the larger syntax of the clause, and certainly does not form a VP of its own. This eliminates the possibility of analysing -kate as ... ka te '... and come' with Inf ka and a suppletive form te for the usual kaa 'come', parallel to ... ka koy '... and go' or ... ka kaa 'and come' (§9.7.1, §9.7.7), which follow entire VPs. There are a few textual examples of -kata as an alternative to -kate when attached to a transitive verb: jow-kata orjow-kate 'carry here' (also 'bring up' a conversational topic). The causative of yee-kate 'come back' is yee-ndi-kate, as in yee-ndi-kate ga! 'bring it back!'. We can likewise cite maan-^ndi-kate 'bring close to here', causative of maan-kate 'come close', -kate precedes the Participle suffix in yee-kate-nte 'coming back', used like English next in connection with cyclical (i.e. periodically "returning") time expressions: alhaddi yee-kate-nte 'next Sunday'. In texts from a riverine village near Timbuktu, kate is a separable postverbal particle, as shown by causative yee-ndi ga kate 'bring it back' (compare the Timbuktu form given in the preceding paragraph). Centrip -kate (variant -kata) is perhaps related etymologically to the verb kate ~ kata 'bring'. However, the Centripetal morpheme is quite ancient and even occurs (as kat) in Tadaksahak.

6.4 Verb-stem reduplication A verb that normally occurs as a simple stem can be reduplicated to indicate iteration or prolongation. Such reduplication is not very common, and applies chiefly to verbs expressing simple physical actions or events which can form patterned sequences. Bisyllabic stems are especially prone to reduplication, for verbs as for nouns and adjectives (§4.7). Our examples are from the Timbuktu texts. The gloss of the unreduplicated stem is indicated by "<" if not obvious from that of the reduplication. Action verbs:

142 6 Verbal voice and verb derivation bere-bere 'pour (tea) back and forth' <'flip, invert', dumbu-dumbu '(heart) beat' <'be cut', haw-haw 'tie (all) up', hina-hina 'cook (food)', jamna-jamna 'distribute, dole out', kumna-kumna 'gather up', tasa-tasa 'push around', and waijga-waijga 'go around, walk in circles'. There are a few stative examples with distributive or intensive value: duqgu-duqgu 'be lukewarm (all over)', kara-kara 'be yellow (all over)'. boto-boto '(liquid, mud) thicken' is recorded only in this quadrisyllable form, but may be a synchronic reduplication in light of boto-ndi 'cause to thicken'. There are a number of verbs which occur only in quadrisyllable reduplicated form, most of them denoting patterned repetitive (or distributive) events. In such cases we omit the internal hyphen. A few examples are kotokoto 'cough', kulikuli 'wrap up', kulumkulum'foldup', loqgologgo 'carry (child) on shoulder', petepete 'be oversized', and wiliwili'v/rap around'.

Chapter 7 VP structure

7.1 Types of predicates 7.1.1 Quasi-verbs ci (equational) and nono (identificational) Two-place equational predicates equate the denotation of a predicate NP with the denotation of the overt subject NP. This involves the equational quasi-verb Si 'be' (222a-b). (222)

a.

b.

no-o bey kaa woo ci alhoor 2SgS-Impf know that Dem be limestone 'You(Sg) know that this is limestone.' nda ma na ci faraa-kom moo,... if 2SgS Neg be toil-Char also, ... 'and if you(Sg) are not a manual worker,...'

Since ci links a subject NP with a postverbal NP, it resembles a transitive verb. In many languages, an equational sentence with copula would be distinguished from a transitive by case marking (copular 'X-Nominative be Y-Nominative' versus transitive 'X-Nominative hit Y-Accusative'), but KCh has no overt case marking for the postverbal NPs in either case. If a third person pronoun functions as predicate NP after ci, it takes the form 3Sg ga or 3P1 gi, just like direct object pronouns, as in (223), a particularly common phrase.

(223)

nda a na ci ga, ... if 3SgS Neg be 3SgO, ... Otherwise, ...' (lit. 'if it isn't it, ...')

ci is clearly a verb syntactically, but behaves differently from ordinary verbs with reference to MAN marking. Ordinary verbs freely allow the full set of preceding MAN possibilities (§7.2): zero (interpreted as perfective indicative positive), Neg na, Impf o -go, ImpfNeg si, Subju ma, and Subju + Neg ma si. By contrast, ci combines easily only with zero and with Neg na. For ci, these aspectually unmarked forms are used indiscriminately for both present and past time reference. The other MAN possibilities, while attested, are uncommon in texts. Attempts to elicit imperfective forms in future contexts ('I'm chief this year, and next year I'll still be chief) yield constructions with inchoative kaa 'become' or continuative cindi 'remain' rather than Stative ci. However, there are occasional occurrences of Impf o - go with Si in the texts, indicating that the Impf marker is at least grammatical with ci. Examples in (224).

144 7 VP structure (224)

a.

hay di kaa cow-koy di yo har..., thing Def Rel study-Char Def PI say ... , a go ci ciimi daa 3SgS Impf be truth Emph 'What the learned people said ..., it is the truth.' b. yaaha di kaa cindi, yaaha di^ o ci eight Def Rel remain, eight Def Impf be jere di yo kaa windi-windi ga side Def PI Rel Rdp-encircle 3SgO 'the eight (sticks) that remain, the eight are (=function as) the sides that flank it.'

In such examples, Impf o ~ go could be omitted with no significant change in meaning. For example, a ci ciimi 'it is the truth' is much more common than the a go ci ciimi in (224a). It is also difficult to elicit subjunctive ma ci and its negation ma si ci. In contexts construable as involving transitions such as 'he wants me to be[come] chief,' inchoative kaa 'become' usually appears instead of stative ci. However, subjunctive ma ci and its negation do occasionally occur in texts, as in (225a). In direct elicitation, I obtained such combinations most reliably in subjunctive complements of the optative particle yela 'hopefully', as in (225b), since this particle is compatible with non-inchoative 'be'.

(225)

baa a ma ci a or if 3SgS want 3SgS Subju be addama-jje kaa ci sportif be athlete person Rel On the other hand, if he wants to be person who is athletic,..." b. yela a ma ci sukal, hopefully 3SgS Subju be sugar, a ma si ci ciiri 3SgS Subju Neg be salt 'Let's hope it may be sugar, (and) that it may not be salt.' a.

wala

nda

Another copula-like construction involves the predicator nono instead of ci. It's word-class status is rather unclear; we refer to it nontechnically as a "quasi-verb." Whereas ci always occurs in a construction of the type X ci Υ equating an overt NP (X) with another NP (Y), the ποπό construction is just Ynono with a single preceding NP. The free English translation is 'it is (or was) (a) Y* where 'it' is a referent established by previous discourse (or by a preposed topic NP); this referent is not expressed overtly, even by a third person pronoun, within the nono clause itself. Examples are in (226). (226a) illustrates clearly the presence of a prior discourse referent. (226b) is likewise an answer to 'Who is it (knocking at the door)?'

7.1 Types of predicates (226)

145

a.

no-o guna ga moo hal no-o hoqgu 2SgS-Impf see 3SgO also until 2SgS-Impf believe [alhoor nono] [limestone it-is] 'You also look at it (=stone), until you are convinced (that) it is limestone.' b. ay nono ISg it-is 'It's me.'

We will expand briefly on the usage of nono and then assess its syntactic status. Broadly speaking, X ci Υ is favored when Υ adds descriptive information to our representation of the referent of X, whose identity is already clear. The Υ position is often filled by a simple common noun of a descriptive nature, such as talka 'poor person'. By contrast, Υ nono is most commonly used when the Υ is an NP that adds fundamental identificational information about a previously mentioned but not yet fully identified referent. As telltale symptoms of this identificational use of Υ nono, two facts may be mentioned. First, Υ nono often occurs in the complement of verbs of knowledge and belief, as in (226a). Second, the NP in the Υ position of Υ nono is often accompanied by Emph daa, which stresses precise identity. In (227) we see both of these features. (227)

ijga ta^ o horjgu [dow di daa] nono 3SgF fop Impf believe [sand Def Emph] it-is kaa ga na rjgu^ o dira Rel by Foe LogoSgS Impf walk 'It (animal) was thinking that it was just (solid) ground [on which] [focus] it was walking.'

We now look more closely at the deceptively tricky syntax of Υ nono. The first point to make is that this construction cannot directly take any preverbal MAN morpheme (Impf o, Subju ma, Neg na). This suggests that nono is not a verb. Moreover, nono has none of the normal verbal derivatives (participle, factitivecausative, abstractive). Second, when the NP in the Υ position of Υ nono is head of a relative clause, the relative clause always follows ΠΟΛΟ. In fact, the combination in (228) is very common in texts. (228)

haya nono kaa ... thing it-is Rel ... 'It is a thing that...'

Ordinarily a relative clause immediately follows its head NP. However, in (319) in §8.3, below, we will see that extraposition of the relative clause is normal in predications of location or existence.

146 7 VP structure Third, nono is itself common within relative clauses, the Υ position in Υ ηοηο being relativized on, as in (229). (229)

[wirci woo ta] yer moqgo ka bey [haya kaa [nono] [disease Dem Top] IPlSfail Inf know [thing Rel [it-is]] 'That diseasey, we were unable to discover the thingx whichx ity was f,.'

Fourth, while Emph daa normally follows Υ and precedes nono, as in (227), it can also (though rarely) follow nono, as in (231). (230)

... wala addama-jje nono daa ciimi-ciimi, ... or human it-is Emph truth-truth, wala aljinni nono or djinn it-is '(I was curious) whether it really was a human, or it was a djinn.'

More normal would be [addama-jje daa] nono 'it is (or was) a human,' cf. (385a) in §8.5.1. The addition in (230) of ciimi-ciimi'truly', in adverbial function, suggests that the focus is on the propositional truth value rather than on the constituent 'human', so this may be a case where daa takes the core clause in its scope. This is unusual for daa, which normally has narrower scope over a single constituent (§8.5.1). Fifth, it is actually possible to combine the two predicate types X ci Υ and Υ nono into a single equational predication of the form X ci Υ nono 'X is (or was) (a) Y.' An example is (231), where a ci [i-tey-nte di] nono (lit., 'it is the wet one') is the relevant sequence. (231)

nda n kumna ga moreyda, no-o nan a ma if 2SgS gather 3SgO now, 2SgS-Impf leave 3SgS Subju koo, wala jaa^ a ci [i-tey-nte di] nono, be-dry, or since 3SgS be [Absol-wet-Partpl Def] it-is, no-o dam ga haya ra 2SgS-Impf put 3SgO thing Loc wala musa foo na no-o dam a se ? or manner which? Foe 2SgS-Impf do 3Sg Dat ? 'When you(Sg) gather it (=pile of melon seeds), do you let it dry off, or (even) back when it is in (its) wet state do you(Sg) put it in something, or what do you do to it?'

The composite construction X ci Υ nono occurs chiefly in the negative form X na ci Υ nono, which functions as the usual negative counterpart of Υ nono, with the emphasis on identification rather than description. Although the relevant part of (231) is positive, it is in a yes-no question, which may have favored the longer construction. A typical negative example is (232).

7.1 Types of predicates (232)

a na ci addama-jje 3SgS Neg be human 'It isn't a human.'

ta Top

147

ποπό it-is

The parsing of Xna ci Υ nono is tricky. One possibility is to take is as a single clause, with ci as the basic verb and nono as a kind of redundant, nonclausal supplement. However, we could alternatively parse it as a na ci [Y nono], glossable as 'it is not the case (that) [it is (a) Y].' This is because a na δϊ commonly functions as a higher-order negation with a complete proposition as its complement (§9.3.2). Sixth, discourse-functional (DF) morphemes like moo 'also, moreover', and the quantifier kul, can be added to Y nono either after the NP (Y) or after the nono, apparently with different scope readings. (232) shows the "Y" constituent with weak Top ta, which in ordinary sentences is most typical of subject NPs and preposed topical constituents (§8.4.3). In (233a), moo in the sense 'moreover' has scope over and follows the entire equational clause addabba ye nono. However, in (233b), which follows immediately on (232) in the relevant text, moo takes narrow scope over and immediately follows the "Y" NPjinni 'djinn, genie', and so precedes nono. (233)

a.

b.

addabba ye nono moo kaa, animal PI it-is also Rel, /'-;' tiisa ka mey alkadar 3PlS-Impf do-much Inf have power "They (=elephants) are animals moreover which—, they have a lot of power.' ... mere a na ci [jinni moo] nono ... but 3SgS Neg be [djinn also] it-is '... but it isn't a djinn either.'

The syntactic facts adduced above seem to give us mixed signals about the syntactic status of Y nono. The two basic analytical possibilities seem to be a) Y nono is an intransitive sentence with subject Y and a defective, uninflectable quasiverb as predicate, and b) Y nono functions as the reduction of a larger underlying structure of the type X BE Y nono, whose understood subject X is deleted along with the abstract BE verb. In support of (b), one could argue that the X ci Y nono construction of (231-32) is the surface realization of the fuller underlying structure. However, as noted above we must also consider the possibility that some or all cases of X ci Y nono actually constitute biclausal structures of the type X ci [Y nono], in which case they shed no new light on the internal syntax of Y nono. The crucial test for choosing between analyses (a) and (b) is whether Y has subject properties. In theory, this should be easy to decide—just focalize this Υ ΝΡ and see whether we get SFoc ijga or (nonsubject) Foe na in the resulting surface structure (§5.8.1, §8.1.1-2). Unfortunately, I have not been able to elicit such a focalization structure with nono. Instead of the hoped-for choice between subject-focus #maa qga nono and nonsubject focus #maa na nono in the sense 'It is what?', I always get a construction with equational ci rather than nono. Likewise, there is no infinitival VP version of Y nono with Inf ka (§9.4, §9.7). I conclude that Y nono is a unique, sui

148 7 VP structure generis construction which defies any simple effort to integrate it into the productive clausal syntax. 7.1.2 Locational quasi-verbs goo, sii The basic locational predicators are goo 'be (in a place)' and its negation sii a place), be absent'. Each is normally followed by a more concrete LP phrase, §5.12) such as a place name, adverbial, or PP. I refer to them "quasi-verbs," but their peculiarities are different from those of other described in the adjoining sections. Examples in (234).

(234)

a. i goo nee 3P1S be here 'They are here.' b. a sii [huu di 3SgS be-absent [house Def 'He (She, It) is not in the house.'

'not be (in (locational loosely as quasi-verbs

ra] Loc]

goo is clearly related to Impf (positive) ο ~ go (<*go), as is sii to ImpfNeg si. In sentences with ordinary verbs, ο and si are members of the set of MAN (mood-aspectnegation) morphemes that intervene between subject NP and verb (§7.2.1). That the connection between {goo sii} and the cognate imperfect!ve morphemes ο ~ go and si is synchronically real is shown by the fact that the imperfective morphemes are pronounced goo and sii in the one situation where they are clause-final; namely, in truncated replies to yes-no questions and similar echoes (§8.2.1). Moreover, locational {goo sii} cannot be preceded by MAN morphemes (#o goo, #ma goo, etc.). If we were to assume that the "verb" position is obligatorily filled in any predicate, the preferred analysis of (234a-b) would be to take {goo sii} as verbs, albeit a special type of verbs which do not allow MAN morphemes. Alternatively, since these quasi-verbs are apparently morphemically identical to the cognate preverbal MAN morphemes, one could argue that {goo sii} in (234a-b) are simply stressed allomorphs of Impf (positive) ο ~ go and ImpfNeg si, used when the following verb position is vacant (a possibility limited to locationals). The two analyses lead to the alternative parsings in (235a-b) for sentence (234a). (235)

subject NP a. i b. / c. / d. i

MAN morphemes 0 goo goo tx

verb goo 0 BE βοοχ+ BE

locational nee nee nee nee

I favor (236b) over (236a). However, we might also consider additional variations on the general approach (235b), represented here as (235c-d). In (235c), goo is a MAN morpheme as in (235b), but the verb position is filled by a "light" (i.e. low-content) verb BE that happens to be phonologically null. In (235d) we have started out with the

7.1 Types of predicates

149

same structure, but the MAN morpheme goo has then been fused or adjoined to BE, perhaps leaving a (coindexed) trace tx behind. In (235c-d), we might equate the BE verb specifically with bara 'be, exist' (following section). In any event, forms with overt bara are closely related syntactically to the goo and sii sentences we have been discussing. There are three syntactic contexts where goo and sii are syntactically impossible, and where constructions involving bara are used instead. First, goo and sii cannot be used in subjunctives, where they are replaced by, respectively, the positive and negative subjunctive of bara. The subjunctive equivalent of (234a) is therefore / ma bara nee 'that they be here.' Second, goo and sii cannot be used in imperatives, so we again make use of the subjunctive of bara to fill the void; see (266) in §7.3. Third, goo is not allowed in infinitival VPs, again requiring the use of bara, as in ... ka bara nee '... to be here.' We can therefore get a very close approximation to the surface facts by arguing that there is an underlying existential-locative BE verb which is realized as zero following imperfective morphemes, and as bara elsewhere. In order to actually formalize this analysis, we would have to distinguish this BE, realized as (0 ~ bara,}, from bara2 in the sense 'exist', since bara2 can occur after Impf as well as other MAN morphemes (following section). In any event, existential-locative BE is clearly distinct from equational or identificational quasi-verbs (oi 'be', ποπό 'it is') described above. Although goo and sii in (234a-b) are basically locational rather than pure existentials, in some textual occurrences the following LP seems to be nearly pro forma, and the clause comes close to a pure existential predication with little emphasis on location. The favorite "bleached" locationals used for this purpose are doodi ~ dooti 'there* and third person pronominal Locative PPs such as a ra 'in it, therein'. Both occur in (236), which describes how one detects limestone deposits in the bush; the key phrases are bolded in the free translation as well as in the interlinears. (236)

jombu-jombu woo di ye na nda yer guqguma Rdp-debris Dem Def PI Foe if 1P1S bend yer gun a gi yer taar gi, 1P1S see 3P1O 1P1S touch 3P1O, yer ο gar kuntur keyna yo goo^ [a ra] 1P1S Impf find lump small PI be~ [3 S g Loc] kuntur di yo_^ ο fey, kuntur foo yo goo doodi lump Def PI Impf vary, lump one PI be there kaa ci yaada, kuntur foo yo goo doodi Rel be worthless, lump one PI be there kaa nda n taar gi kul Rel if 2SgS touch 3P1O all no-o bey kaa woo ci alhoor 2SgS-Impf know that Dem be limestone 'It's those bits [focus] that, if we bend over and we see them and we touch them, we'll find that some (small) chunks are in it; the chunks are variable; some chunks are there which are no good; some (other) chunks are there which, if you (Sg) touch them, you'll know that this is limestone.'

150 7 VP structure Unlike English bleached there in there is (are)..., the locationals a ra 'in it' and doodi 'there' have at least vestiges of a locational denotation, but in passages like this the location has already been established in prior discourse. In other cases, the location is vague or indefinite, making the existential function even harder to miss, as in (237). Even when there is no overt LP, a locational is implied, as in (238). (237)

wirci foo moo goo doodi, kaa^ ci wirci jaas-o disease one also be there, Rel be disease bad 'There is also another (donkey) disease there, which is a dreadful disease.' a goo 3SgS be 'Here she is!Or "There she is!'

(238)

(238) is usually rendered as la voila or la void in local French and has a similar presentative quality. For more on presentatives, see §7.2.3. There is another, completely different use of a goo and similar combinations of a pronoun with goo or sii, only superficially identical to the presentative type (238). This is the pattern exemplified by a 500 '(Yes) it is' and ay sii '(No) I don't' used in truncated replies to yes-no questions and in similar echoing contexts (§8.2.1). This type has no presentative or locational-existential connotations. Locational quasi-verbs have no difficulty occurring in relativized or focus constructions. Examples in (239). (239)

a.

b.

c.

maa rjga goo nee ? what? S Foe be here? 'What [focus] is here?' har di kaa goo nee man Def Rel be here 'the man who is here' man na a goo ? where? Foe 3SgS be ? 'Where [focus] is he?'

(239c) and similar instances with clause-final 500 (or sii) only superficially resemble the presentative type (238). (239c), unlike (238), does have an overt LP complement, the only difference being that in (239c) the LP (man 'where?') has been fronted as part of the focalization process that is regular with WH interrogatives. We could represent (239c) as manx na a goo tx with a phonologically unrealized trace to make this clear.

7.1 Types of predicates

151

7.1.3 Existential and impersonal quasi-verb bara The form bara occurs in several constructions. We disregard here the 'except' construction with following NP (§8.5.3) and the clause-initial use as a 'because' complementizer (§9.5.7), in order to focus on its verbal and quasi-verbal uses. First, bara is used in the normal verb position (following a subject NP and MAN morphemes) as an existential predicator 'exist'. We have noted in the preceding section that locationals of the type 'be there' or 'be in it' can also be used in a fashion approaching existential predications, so the use of bara as an existential is somewhat circumscribed. In general, bara is preferred when the existant is abstract, unlocalized, or too diffuse to be meaningfully localized. Examples in (240). (240)

a.

b.

saa kaa keydiya^ ο bara time Rel monsoon Impf be 'when there is a (good) rainy season' saa kaa keydiya si bara time Rel monsoon ImpfNeg be 'when there is no rainy season'

Note that bara can be preceded by Impf o or ImpfNeg si. The ability to appear after MAN morphemes distinguishes bara from locational quasi-verbs goo and sii (§7.1.2) and from identificational nono (§7.1.1). Note also that bara does not require a following LP (locational phrase), though such a phrase could be added to (240a-b). bara replaces locational goo in certain constructions where goo is syntactically impermissible. This use of bara does not translate easily as 'exist', so it may be useful to recognize a distinct abstract locational BE that is realized as 0 after imperfective morphemes and as bara, elsewhere, distinct from bara2 'exist', as suggested in the preceding section. Negative locational sii is likewise replaced by a negated form of bara2. These replacements occur in the subjunctive mood with ma, which cannot co-occur with {goo sii} or with the imperfective morphemes related to the latter; an example is (241a). Using "L" to represent the locational, X goo L 'X is in L* has subjunctive counterpart X ma bara L 'that X may be in L,' while its negation X sii L 'X is not in L' becomes X ma si bara L 'that X may not be in L'. Likewise, in the infinitival VP construction with Inf ka, bara replaces goo. In (241b), the infinitival construction is required by serial verb hima. (241)

a.

b.

yee baa ay ma bara nee jirjgar ban ISgSImpf want ISgS Subju be here holiday day Ί want to be here on the day of the (Muslim) holiday.' a-a hima ka bara bamako 3SgS-Impf ought Inf be Bamako 'He ought to be in Bamako.'

Like the locationals goo and sii, bara 'exist' has no difficulty occurring in relativized or focalized clauses. A relative clause is seen in (242).

152 7 VP structure (242)

ije-meyre woo yo child Dem PI 'those children who exist'

kaa Rel

bara exist

bara also has a different syntactic function as a sentence-initial bare impersonal expression meaning 'must'. In this construction it permits no subject NP or MAN morphemes, and is immediately followed by a clausal complement with no intervening complementizer or other material. For the obligational 'must' construction with subjunctive complement, see §9.6.2. For an epistemic 'it must be the case that ...' construction with indicative complement, and a related 'by God, (I swear that) ...' construction, see §9.5.9. Conceivably we might connect existential bara with one or both of these complementizing functions. For example, epistemic bara plus indicative could be analysed in event-semantic terms as e.g. 'exist (e): e = [I went],' the event-level existential functioning as an emphatic assertion of truth. It is harder to see how this might apply to the obligational type with subjunctive complement. In any event, we must recognize the possibility that clause-initial bara in the complement constructions functions as an uninflectable predicator (i.e., a kind of quasi-verb). 1.1.4 Possessive predications Ownership can be expressed in several ways. Consider how we might express 'X has Y,' where X is the possessor and Υ the possessed. The most basic choice is whether to make X or Υ the grammatical subject. If X is the subject, as in English, the usual KCh verb is mey 'have, own'. If the emphasis is on the process of acquisition, duu 'get, obtain, earn' is used instead. Examples in (243). (243)

a.

nda i har qgu-yo^ o if 3P1S say LogoPlS Impf 'if they say that they have it' b. ay si duu hay a ISgS ImpfNeg get thing Ί won't get (=obtain) anything.'

mey have

ga 3SgO

If Υ is the subject, on the other hand, one possibility is a 'be' verb plus a complement including X. Indeed, the pattern Υ goo [X ga] with postposition ga 'by, from* is the common way to describe temporary physical possession or custody. (244)

nda a gar kuumu goo^ [ay ga] if 3SgS find hoe be~ [ISg by] 'if I had happened to have a hoe on me then'

moreyda now

Locational goo is replaced by bara here under the syntactic conditions described in §7.1.3 (after Subju ma and in infinitival VPs). It is also possible to use bara 'exist' instead of goo in sentences like (244) to indicate a more enduring possession, but this

7.1 Types of predicates

153

seems uncommon; it is preempted by the productive type X mey Υ 'X has Y' seen in (243a). There are also some examples of postpositions other than ga in the general structure represented by (244), though none has the abstract "custody" connotations of ga. In (245) we have Loc ra in a context where "possession" has a strongly locative flavor. (245)

nkanji goo [h ysi di ra] tick be [dog Def Loc] 'There are ticks on the dog.' (= 'Dogs have ticks.')

For banda 'behind, with' in a kind of temporary-possession sense, see §1 1.1.2. To express the sense Ύ belongs to X,' we get Υ ci [X wane] Ύ is of X,' with possessive postposition wane, as in (246). (246)

Q: woo ci mey wane ? A: ay wane

'This is whose?' '(it is) mine.'

The KCh system of possessive predications is quite different from that of KS and other Songhay languages to the east.

7.1.5 haya foo '(do) anything' and other apparent verbless predicates There is one construction where an NP with indefinite or interrogative reference appears to be used as a verb. We first consider haya foo One thing', which can be used as a negative polarity NP '(not) ... anything' (§9.3.4). However, it appears to function as a verb in (247a-b). (247)

a.

b.

woo ci ferey kaa si Dem be brick Rel ImpfNeg be-cut, a si [haya foo] 3SgS ImpfNeg [thing one] 'This is a (type of) brick which cannot be cut or anything else.' addama-jje kaa ni si faraa, human Rel 2SgS ImpfNeg get- tired, ni si sungey, ni si [haya foo] 2SgS ImpfNeg sweat, 2SgS ImpfNeg [thing one] bara no-o goto no-o nin attey except 2SgS-Impf sit 2SgS-Impf drink tea Ά human (=you) who you don't get tired, you don't break a sweat you don't anything, except you sit (and) you drink tea.'

Essentially, haya foo here functions as a kind of "etcetera" verb that can be roughly glossed 'be or do anything'. Its clause is generally the last in a series of negative clauses, and caps them by generalizing the negation to the set of imaginable

154 7 VP structure propositions of the same general sort as the preceding ones. In (247a) the preceding verbja/a 'cut, carve' is used in a mediopassive sense 'be cuttable', so here haya foo represents 'be X-able' for any similar transitive action verb, for example 'carve' or 'break'. In (247b), haya foo caps the series 'get tired ... , break a sweat ...' and by implication denotes the set of similar expressions involving fatigue or other discomfort. Like haya foo in (247), interrogative maa 'what?' (§8.2.2) can be used as an apparent verb, as in (248). a-a maa ? 3SgS-Impf what? 'She (is or does) what?' (= 'She whats?')

(248)

The 'whatchamacallit1 words haywana, hajje, and haya-jje (§8.2.6) have the same capacity. When used as verbs, they are usually intransitive, but can also be transitive as in (249a-b).

(249)

a. yee b.

haya-jje

ga

ISgSImpf whatcha 3SgO Ί will whatchamacallit him.' nda no-o wir ka kar kupkup, if 2SgS-Impf try Inf hit blade, musa foo na no-o hajje ga nda ? manner which? Foe 2SgS-Impf whatcha 3SgO with? 'When you want to fashion a machete, how [focus] do you whatchamacallit it?'

One way to analyse (247-49) is to posit a phonologically unrealized low-content ("light") verb DO or BE. This would work fairly well in (247-48), where haya foo and maa, respectively, could be taken as postverbal direct objects. However, the analysis would not work in (249). In both (249a) and (249b), 3SgO ga is clearly the direct object, and as an enclitic pronominal must directly follow the verb (§9.1.1). There is no way to insert a DO verb into (249a-b) and produce a grammatical sentence. Therefore we must take the 'whatchamacallit?' word as a verb, not as an NP following a phonologically unexpressed verb. One might compare the verb-like use of the ordinarily nominal haya foo, maa, and haya-jje with the use of original morphological nominalizations diya-terey and seede-terey as verbs, see (87f) in §4.6.4, above.

7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN) The categories distinguished by the MAN morphemes that intervene between subject NP and the verb are those in (250). The unmarked categories are expressed by the absence of a MAN morpheme.

7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN) (250)

a. b. c.

155

mood: marked subjunctive versus unmarked indicative (§7.2.4); aspect: marked imperfective versus unmarked perfective (§7.2.2); negation: marked negative versus unmarked positive

We do not usually indicate the morphologically unmarked categories indicative, perfective, or positive in interlinear glosses. Aside from the three basic binary oppositions in (250), there are some special forms for presentative imperfectives (§7.2.3), future tense (§7.2.5), and progressives (§7.2.6).

7.2.1 MAN morphemes and sequences Aside from the fact that each categorial subsystem (mood, aspect, negation) has an unmarked value, there is one further neutralization (aspect is unmarked when the mood is subjunctive), and one case of morphological fusion of marked categories (Impf + Neg). The result is that surface MAN strings are extremely simple, only one basic combination being expressed by a two-morpheme sequence. The surface forms are those in (251), the MAN forms following the subject NP and immediately preceding the verb. (251)

MAN — ο-go na si ma ma si

form

categorial value Indie Perf Pos Indie Impf Pos Indic Perf Neg Indic Impf Neg Subju Pos Subju Neg

interlinear label(s) — Impf Neg ImpfNeg Subju Subju Neg

We omit imperatives here (see §7.3). It is clear that ο ~ go is basically an imperfective marker, and that ma is a subjunctive modal. The distribution of the negatives si and na makes precise analysis difficult. On the one hand, indicative perfective negative na should be a simple Neg morpheme, since indicative and perfective are zero categories. This would imply that indicative imperfective negative si is the surface expression of two marked categories, Impf plus Neg (also interpreted as indicative due to the absence of subjunctive marking). This in turn would lead us to expect that the negative marker used with Subju ma would be the categorially simpler Neg na rather than the more complex ImpfNeg si, but in fact we get si in the negative subjunctive ma si. To avoid arbitrary reductionism, I conservatively label 173 as "Neg." In the indicative, I label si as "ImpfNeg," but in the combination ma si (where aspect is neutralized) I label si simply as "Neg." In KCh (particularly in Timbuktu), the variant ο is vastly more common than the other variant go. Irregular contractions of ο with a word-final vowel in the preceding (subject) NP or pronoun are discussed in §3.7.1.

156 7 VP structure As noted in §7.1.2 and §8.2.1, ο - go and si are arguably identical to the locational quasi-verbs 500 (positive) and sii (negative). The 2Sg pronoun, elsewhere ni, shows some irregularities. The 2SgS (perfective) Neg sequence is ma na instead of #ni na. The 2Sg ma allomorph is also possibly present in 2SgSSubju ma (if reduced from #ma ma) and is clearly present in 2SgDat mana- mane. See §3.8.2 for discussion. The ISg pronoun, usually ay, has an optional ISgSSubju variant ye alongside regular ay ma, see §3.8.1.

7.2.2 Perfective and imperfective The basic Impf morpheme is ο ~ go. By far the predominant form in Timbuktu is o. The Impf morpheme follows the subject and is followed by the verb; the only morpheme which may intervene between Impf and the verb is Future ta (§7.2.5). Since all pronouns, NP-final grammatical morphemes (e.g. Def di or PI yo), and SFoc gga end in a vowel, as do many noun stems, o usually undergoes VV-Contraction. In the case of pronouns, some of the contractions are irregular, see (35) in (§3.7.1). The combination of Impf plus Neg is expressed by the portmanteau morpheme si, glossed ImpfNeg (§7.2.1). The imperfective-perfective opposition is neutralized in the subjunctive mood (§7.2.4), and with identificational quasi-verb nono (§7.1.1). It is only unreliably expressed with equational ci 'be' (§7.1.1). There are two situations where ο - go is replaced by goo, and ImpfNeg si by sii. The first situation is in truncated replies to yes-no questions (§8.2.1). The second situation, in our preferred analysis, is locational predications of the type 'be (in a place)', where we get apparent quasi-verbs goo and sii (§7.1.2). There is no true tense marking in KCh. However, the basic aspect categories, perfective (unmarked) and imperfective (o - go), have temporal as well as aspectual implications. We first consider ordinary sentences (without complementizers or special serial verbs), then discuss aspectual usage in specialized syntactic constructions. We focus first on action and process verbs, returning below to verbs of adjectival quality, which have special features. In both hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals, the antecedent ('if ...') clause is most often perfective, though it may be imperfective under limited conditions. The consequent clause is always imperfective. Since the antecedent may contain more than one clause, the perfective-to-imperfective transition is often a crucial clue in identifying the break between antecedent and consequent (§9.5.1). In ordinary past-tense narratives, perfective and imperfective may alternate in the fashion familiar from many languages. Perfective is associated with abrupt or otherwise bounded events of the sort that are usually foregrounded in narrative. Imperfective applies prototypically to prolonged, incomplete or otherwise unbounded situations or processes of the sort commonly used in narrative as backgrounds, their temporal intervals encompassing those of superimposed foregrounded events. Consider (252).

7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN)

(252) a. b. c.

d e. f. g.

157

category Perf

ay fatta baggu woo ra ISgS exit floodplain Dem Loc Impf yee koy yer^ doo, ISgSImpf go IPT chez, Perf (2) ay kaa hal ay too nee ISgS come until ISgS arrive here Rel kaa X huu di gaa goo, Rel X house Def Presentative be Perf, topic ay kaa ta gar, farm woo di ta kul, ISgS come Inf find, clearing Dem Def Top all, Impf a-a ton nda allaa feeji korey, 3SgS-Impfbe-full with just sheep white, ay kaa ta gar Perf feeji woo yo, ISgS come Inf find sheep Dem PI, boro go Impf maasu key i person Impf stand 3 PI amid Rel (Impf) kaa si hima bara allaa fulan, Rel ImpfNeg resemble except just Fula Impf a-a dam bomo-fendu a-a dam kaasa 3SgS-Impf put hat 3SgS-Impf put cloak . '(a) I went out from that inundated field; (b) I was going home; (c) I came and arrived here (d) where X's house is over here; (e) I came and found (that), all that clearing, (f) it was full of nothing but white sheep; (g) I came and found (that) those sheep, (h) someone was standing in the middle of them, (i) who resembled nothing if not a Fula; (j) he was wearing a straw hat and a wool cloak;...'

Since this narrative describes a single episode, each foregrounded action is expressed in the perfective, while the imperfective is reserved for unbounded activities that provide background for these actions (252b) and for statives (252f,h,j). When describing recurrent episodes from the past, there is a certain tension between two aspectual patterns. Since each event occurred many times, one tendency is to put all action clauses in the imperfective. The countervailing tendency is to assign aspect in a manner sensitive to local interclausal relations. Consider (253), a continuous textual sequence which describes a recurrent episode type from the distant past. Subordinated clauses (subjunctive, relative) are indented.

158 7 VP structure (253)

category a. topical NP yinaa boro di yo old-time person Def Pl b. Perf nda i wir ka hoo tarkunda if ~ 3P1S seek Inf hunt elephant wala hilli-foo woo yo, or rhinoceros Dem Pl, c. Impf guusu beer yo na^ i-i faani, pit big PI Foe 3PlS-Impf dig, Impf guusu^ woo yo i-i faani ga, pit Dem Pl 3PlS-Impfdüg 3SgO e. Impf i-i taasi subu-subu yo, 3PlS-Impf seek Rdp-grass Pl, nda bundu-bundu yo and stick-Rdp Pl f. Impf /-/ daabu ga nda guusu di mee di, 3PlS-Impf close 3SgO with pit Def mouth Def, nda a kaa kul, g- Perf if 3SgS come all, Impf nga ta^ o hoqgu dow di daa nono 3SgF Top Impf think ground Def Emph it-is Rel (Impf) kaa ga na qgu_^ o dira Rel by Foc LogoSg Impf walk Impf (2) a-a haqga a-a dira 3SgS-Impf follow 3SgS-Impf walk Subju hal a ma soroku guusu di ra, until 3SgS Subju fall-in pit Def Loc 1. Perf nda a faati ka soroku guusu di ra dee, if 3SgS do-already Inf fall-in pit Def Loc Emph, m. Perf(2) nga ta a cee baa a kamba baa 3SgF Top 3Sg foot break 3Sg hand break '(a) The old time people, (b) when they wanted to hunt those elephants or rhinos, (c) it was large pits [focus] that they would dig; (d) those large pits they would dig it (earth), (e) they would look for some grasses and some sticks, (f) and they would cover up the opening of the pit with it; (g) when it (animal) came along, (h) it would think that it was (solid) ground (i) on which [focus] it was walking; (j) it would continue walking along, (k) until it fell into the pit; (1) when it had fallen into the pit, (m) as for it (animal), its leg(s) broke and its hand(s) broke.'

After the initial topical NP, we get a string of foregrounded imperfective action clauses (253c-f,hj), interrupted by perfective clauses (253b,g,l) which denote background events that set the stage for the foregrounded actions. All of the perfective clauses are conditional antecedents in form, with nda 'if (here better glossed 'when ...'). In (2531) the perfectivity is reinforced by the serial verb faati 'have already done'.

7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN)

159

The relative clause (253i) is likewise imperfective. However, in (253m) the narrator shifts out of the (habitual) imperfective pattern. While the subjunctive in (253k) is aspect-neutral, and the perfective in (2531) functions like the English perfect ('had fallen'), the perfective (253m) denotes another foregrounded event parallel to the earlier imperfective clauses like (253c). This aspectual "inconsistency" is, of course, justified in the context of verbal art. During the narrative, dramatic tension gradually builds up. In the climactic clause (253m), the speaker shifts from the generic (habitual) imperfective into the more vivid and concrete perfective aspect. Imperfective is naturally characteristic of "present-tense" sentences, i.e., those where the VP denotes a process or recurrent situation that overlaps the moment of speaking. Imperfective is, however, also normal for "future-tense" sentences, i.e., those where the VP denotes an eventuality whose entire temporal interval follows the moment of speaking. In translating non-narrative conversational recordings, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a given imperfective clause should be translated with present or future tense (254). (254)

a-a goro doodi 3SgS-Impf sit there 'He is sitting there' or 'He will sit there.'

If necessary, the future may be overtly marked by adding another morpheme fa to the Impf marker; see §7.2.5. Expressions like 'a way [for X to escape]' or 'something [for X to eat]' include embedded clauses denoting hypothetical events. There is little need for aspectual oppositions within such embedded clauses. In KCh such expressions are formulated as relative clauses: 'a wayx [that X escape by tx]' or 'somethingx [that X eat fj.' Impersonals like 'there is nothing to eat* are formulated with a specific agent, e.g. 'there is nothing,, [that we (you, they) eat /J.' Both perfective (255a-b) and imperfective (255c) aspects are attested in the embedded clauses, with no obvious semantic difference. Since the Impf morpheme is expected on grounds of futurity (relative to the time interval of the main clause) and temporal unboundedness, the perfective variants can be interpreted as cases of optional neutralization into the morphologically unmarked category. The perfective option is more common in texts. (255)

a.

ma taasi addibaarax 2SgSSubju seek method, kaa π fatta Rel 2SgS exit 'You must seek in your mind a way out.'

[ni lakal di ra] [2Sg mind Def Loc] nda tx with tx (strategem)x by whichx you get

160 7 VP structure (255, cont.) b. nda ay baba wirci if ISg father be-sick hal a si hin ka koy goy, until 3SgS ImpfNeg can Inf go work, yer si ta duu haya foo kaa yer rjaa tx 1P1S ImpfNeg Put get thing one Rel 1P1S eat tx 'If my father is sick and cannot go to work, we'll have nothingx for us to eat tx.' c. yer^ na duu haya kul kaa yer o qaa tx IPTS Neg get thing all Rel 1 PI S Impf eat tx 'We couldn't find anything, for us to eat tx.' Predicates of adjectival quality ('it is red') often appear in perfective form in apparent present-tense stative function. Imperfective aspect is also possible but is not required in the way that we might expect. One way to construe such examples is that the expressions literally denote past-tense transitions to the denoted quality, implying rather than denoting the continuing state. In other words, they function semantically like perfects ('it has become red'). Examples in (256). (256)

a.

b.

a boon 3SgS be-good 'It is (=has become) good.' a na jeen 3SgS Neg be-old 'She is not (=has not become) old.'

For a marked Progressive construction, see §7.2.6.

7.2.3 Presentative imperfectives (preverbal gaa or goo) The Presentative morpheme (always imperfective aspectually) is normally gaa. The variant goo (as in KS) is occasionally attested in combination with kaa, though in the KCh zone goo kaa occurs mainly in the upriver dialects, gaa should not be confused with a (usually clause-final) Emph particle gaa (
7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN)

161

Examples of gaa are in (257).

(257)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

a gaa kaa 3SgS Presentative come 'Here she comes!' ay gaa kaa ISgS Presentative come Tm coming!' (French: j'arrive!) a gaa goo (jirbi ra] 3SgS Presentative be [sleep Loc] 'Here he is, asleep.' [cf. §7.2.6] a gaa hina taasu 3SgS Presentative cook meal 'Here she is cooking a meal.' a gaa goo 3SgS Presentative be 'Here he (she) is.'

Note that gaa is compatible with a following locational quasi-verb goo (§7.1.1), as in (257c,e). In the combinations like (257d) with a more substantial VP, the English translation is fairly awkward, but French is better: La voilä qui prepare un repas.

7.2.4 Subjunctive mood I use the term "subjunctive" to denote the mood category expressed by preverbal MAN morpheme ma. The negative counterpart is ma si. si is elsewhere specifically Imperfective Negative (ImpfNeg), but in ma si we gloss it simply as "Neg." Unwary readers of texts might confuse Subju ma with the 2SgS allomorph ma. When ma is preceded by an overt subject NP (or pronominal), it can only be the Subju morpheme. The 2SgS interpretation is possible only when no other subject NP is present. Moreover, Subju ma is always followed either by the verb or by Neg si plus the verb, while 2Sg ma occurs visibly only in 2Sg (perfective) Neg ma na VERB ... . When 2SgS and Subju combine, we get a simple ma VERB ... , and one could argue about whether the ma in this construction is a 2SgS or Subju morpheme; we gloss it in this case as "2SgSubju" (§3.8.3). The only other irregular subjunctive form is the optional, and fairly uncommon, ISgSSubju variant ye. The more common variant, ay ma, is regular in form. Some subjunctive examples are in (258).

162 7 VP structure

(258)

bow woo di ma kaa person Dem Def Subju come '(that) this person come' b. ay ma guna wor ISgS Subju see 2P1O '(that) I see you(Pl)' c. yer ma si goro nee 1P1S Subju Neg sit here '(that) we not sit (=live) here' d. nda bow fatta haya se nin, if person exit thing Dat only, ma dam ga nda a fondo di 2SgSSubju do 3SgO with 3Sg path Def 'If one (=you) goes out (to the fields) for something, you should do it the right way.' e. ni si yadda ay ma koy ka nan ni 2SgS ImpfNeg consent ISgS Subju go Inf leave 2SgO 'You do not consent that I go leave you. f. bara ye yee ka koy kow küfa di must ISgS Subju return Inf go remove curiosity Def had to go back and remove (=satisfy) the curiosity.' a.

The following are the primary syntactic-semantic uses of subjunctive clauses: a) complements of particular matrix-clause verbs, especially desideratives ('want'); b) complements of sentence-initial obligational bara 'must'; c) jussive (reported imperative) complements in reported speech; d) associated with particular complementizers, chiefly hal 'so that' and bilaa 'without'; e) in the "delayed" scope of a distant negation; f) in irrealis contexts like the above but with no overt subjunctive trigger. Examples and detailed syntactic analysis are given in the relevant subsections of §7.2. We may comment, though, that in comparison with "subjunctive" moods in some other languages, in KCh the subjunctive clusters around the deontic (desiderative, obligational, purposive) area of modal space, rather than the epistemic area. Moreover, KCh does not make frequent use of the subjunctive to express habitual aspect.

7.2.5 Future ta We disregard here the very common use of ta as a weak Top particle after pronouns or other NPs (see §8.4.3). The ta we are interested in here is a particle that occurs between Impf o - go, ImpfNeg si), or (rarely) Subju ma and the verb; note that in this position it cannot be mis-parsed as the Top morpheme. To demonstrate that the two morphemes are independent of each other, we note that both occur in the same clause

7.2 Mood-aspect-negation (MAN)

163

ijgi ta si ta tun ... in (259), where the first fa is the Top morpheme attached to the pronoun rjgi (variant of 3P1F rjgi-yo) and the second ta is the preverbal one. (259)

[woo bine} o gar ggi ta na tun, Dem Top Impf find 3P1F Top Neg arise, qgi ta si ta tun bara quatre heures... 3P1F Top ImpfNeg Fut arise except 4:00 "That (=my departure) finds that (=occurs while) they have not gotten up; they won't get up until 4:00.'

I gloss preverbal ta as Future (Fut). However, many statements denoting future events are expressed in the simple imperfective without ta, as indicated in §7.2.2. Examples of Fut ta are in (260).

(260)

a.

b.

c.

d

nda him dam kul if thunder be-done all /'-/' har 'woo go ta kaa hew' 3PlS-Impf say 'Dem Impf Fut become wind' 'When thunder occurs, they say, "that will (soon) turn into a windstorm.'" wor guna cee ciina woo, woo nga_^ o ta gana-ndi yer 2P1S see foot small Dem, Dem SFoc Impf Fut move-Caus 1P1O 'You(Pl) have seen this little foot(-print); it's this [focus] that will (eventually) expel us.' hay kul kaa kali ijga^ o ta kamba thing all Rel pen SFoc Impf Fut hold boro^ ο hin^ ka gaay ga person Impf can Inf restrain 3SgO 'Anything a pen [focus] will (=can) hold, a person can restrain (=tame, control) it.' wala mey ijga^ o garow ga ijgu wane, Interrog who? SFoc Impf lend 3SgO 3ReflSgPoss, a ma ta hasara ga qgu se yaada? 3SgOSubju Fut waste 3SgO 3ReflSg Dat for-nothing? 'WhOj would lend hisx (money) to him y , for him y to subsequently waste it on himselfy for nothing?'

Note the range of "future" nuances here: (260a) clearly involves near future (thunder heralds an approaching dust-storm), (260b) clearly involves distant future (animals in the legendary past foresee that humans will eventually master them), (260c) clearly involves a diffuse potentiality, and (260d) is in an irrealis context. This use of ta is confined to the imperfective aspect. This makes sense grammatically if we have correctly identified ta as an optional Fut marker, since the imperfective is required in main clauses with future time reference anyway. Requiring Impf o - go (or si) is also functionally convenient, since it excludes any possible misparsing of ta as Top ta.

164 7 VP structure Unlike the other MAN morphemes, ta may occur in infinitival VPs after Inf morpheme ka. Though the combination is fairly rare, we can cite the textual example (261). (261)

a yee-kate ka ta fill a [ggu goy di] 3SgS return-CentripInf Fut repeat [SReflSg work DefJ 'He has come back to repeat (=continue) his work.'

Since kaa 'come' can be associated with future time reference, the fact that kaa has a special form kaa ta when used as a serial verb with following VP (§9.7.7) is interesting. One might well interpret ta in kaa ta VP as a special case of Fut ta. See §9.7.7 for discussion.

7.2.6 Marked Progressive constructions In addition to the grammaticalized imperfective aspect category, a stronger durativeprogressive construction is available, though its text frequency is fairly low. This involves locational goo 'be' and the Loc form of a verbal noun (which is often zeroderived from the underlying verb). An example is (262); see also (257c) in §7.2.3, above.

(262)

a goo [kaa ra] 3SgS be [come Loc] 'She is in the process of coming (=is on her way).'

Marked duratives in narrative (Ί kept waiting, until finally ...') are usually expressed in Timbuktu by cindi as a serial verb; see (592a) in §9.7.5. For an alternative dialectal construction with initial jaa used in nearby villages, see (522) in §9.5.6.

7.3 Imperatives Special Impera[tive] forms are limited to second person subject and occur in the positive only. Expressions used as negative imperatives are identical to negated subjunctive clauses. It is possible to distinguish the negative-imperative usage from other subjunctive uses on the grounds that negative imperatives require no external subjunctive trigger. There is no aspect marking in imperatives; Impf o is not allowed. The forms are shown in (263), with indicative counterparts (perfective aspect) provided for comparison.

7.3 Imperatives (263) indicative imperative

2SgS 2PIS 2SgImpera 2PlImpera

positive ni wor- war 0 wo

165

negative ma na wor (- war) na ma si wor (~ war) ma si

While the usual 2P1 morpheme wor - war has variable vocalism, the vowel in 2PlImpera wo is consistently and clearly o. Examples in (264) with kaa 'come', koy 'go', and nee 'here'. (264)

a. b. c.

kaa nee! wo kaa nee! ma si koy!

'Come here!' (Sg) 'Come here!'(PI) 'Don't go!' (Sg)

In spite of the zero 2SgImpera form 0, the syntax treats the subject as 2Sg, as the usual agreement tests show. In (265), here is a reflexive verb, whose direct object is coindexed with its subject (§10.2.3). Note the 2SgO clitic. (265)

here ni nda transform 2SgO with Turn yourself into a bird!'

dirow! bird!

The locational quasi-verbs goo 'be' and sii 'not be' (§7.1.2) are not used in imperatives. Instead, we get a subjunctive form of bara 'exist, be', as in (266). (266)

ma bara 2SgSSubju exist 'Be here tomorrow!'

nee here

suba tomorrow

Chapter 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

In this chapter we consider overtly marked discourse functions (DF) such as topic, focus, and emphasis, along with other syntactic phenomena that can be thought of as involving fronting of a NP or other constituent from the core of a sentence. Formally, DF marking involves a) a concrete DF morpheme or b) fronting or proposing a constituent, or both. The Emphatic categories, along with Only', 'also', and 'like', are expressed by adding a morpheme to a constituent in an already wellformed sentence. Topicality is expressed by various combinations of proposing and morphemic marking. Focus (as we use the term here) is expressed by a clause-level syntactic process. There can be at most one focused constituent (in this sense), while emphasis and topicality are usually more local and are easier to multiply and combine. Although we cannot here provide an exhaustive coverage of the discourse uses of all of these forms, we will comment on important aspects of their syntax and semantics. In particular, we will note that some of the DF particles, such as moo Only', can have either local (e.g., NP) or higher-level (clausal or pragmatic) scope.

8.1 Focus constructions Many sentences have no special focus marking. There are, however, productive devices for marking a particular non-verb constituent (pronoun, full NP, PP, lexical adverbial) as grammatical "focus." The semantic-pragmatic point of marking a focus is to highlight it as a choice made among two or more logically possible options. The focused constituent therefore bears the most contestable, unexpected, or novel information. WH-questions, and answers to them, are the prototypical examples. Syntactically, the focused constituent is fronted to the left of the obligatory core of the sentence (subject NP, MAN morphemes, verb). In most cases a focus morpheme [SFoc or Foe] is inserted between the focused constituent and the core of the sentence. Nonsubject and subject focus constructions must be distinguished.

8.1.1 Nonsubject focus constructions Suppose that X is some constituent following the verb, as shown schematically in (267a). The corresponding focus construction is (267b). (267)

a. b.

subject NP - MAN morphemes - verb -... X ... X - na - subject NP - MAN morphemes - verb -... tx...

Here "t" is an empty category ("trace") coindexed with X. We do not insist on the "reality" of such empty categories but they are at least expositorily useful. We will see that in some cases there is a resumptive third person pronoun instead of a trace.

8.1 Focus constructions

167

The Foe marker 773 precedes the subject NP and should not be confused with the Neg MAN morpheme na, which always occurs directly preceding a verb. Focus na in (267b) can be omitted under some circumstances. Some examples of the focus construction are given in (268). (268)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

saa time

kaa Rel

na

yer

yer 1P1S

o

susum-di move

duu

ka

ga 3SgO

kaa

[saa [time

ta

di] Def]

goro

Foe 1P1S Impf proceed Inf come Inf sit 'When we have hauled it (stone) away, it's thenx [focus] that we proceed to come and sit f,...' [woo yo] na yer o tiisa gi [nda l] [Dem PI] Foe 1P1S Impf make 3P1O [with t] 'It is those, (=various materials) [focus] that we make them (=crates) with /,.' [mobil se] na yer bar yer o kow ga [vehicle Dat] Foe 1P1S say 1P1S Impf take 3SgO 'It's [to the truck (driver)],, [focus] that we said we'll haul it f,.' woo di na wirci woo di ο din t Dem Def Foe disease Dem Def Impf take t 'It's that one, (=weak donkey) [focus] that this disease afflicts tx.' hal ma hoggu kala, hun na^ a kaa t until 2SgSSubju believe that, knife Foe 3SgS become t '... so you might think that, it's a knifex [focus] that it (=metal) has become tx.' bere-berew woo daa na a ci t Rdp-change Dem Emph Foe 3SgS be t '[Precisely this instability], [focus] is what it is f,.' W*r

Here the traces occur in a variety of grammatical functions: temporal adverb (268a), instrumental (268b), Dat PP (268c), direct object (268d-f). The NP following equational quasi-verb ci (268f) is no different in this respect from other direct objects. Note that postpositions like Dat se are fronted along with their complement NP (268c), but that Instr-Comit nda (§5.11.3) does not move and remains stranded in postverbal position, normally directly after any postverbal pronominals (268b). When the fronted constituent functions as a spatiotemporal adverb, and would therefore ideally appear as a PP with a spatial postposition, the postposition is sometimes simply omitted and the NP by itself appears as the fronted constituent, as in (269). Omission of an implied spatial postposition can occur even when the NP remains in its postverbal position (§5.12, §6.1.3), so no special postposition-deletion process is needed for the focalization construction. We will see below, discussing (279-80), that when an entire PP appears in focus position, the Focus morpheme na is sometimes omitted.

168

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

(269)

nda n kaa [a huu] na no-o cirkaare if 2SgS come [3Sg house] Foe 2SgS-Impf breakfast 'If you(Sg) come, it's [(in) his house],, [focus] that you(Sg)'ll eat breakfast f,.'

The focused constituent may be a complex NP including a relative clause (270). (270)

[handi di kaa n kow gi] na no-o baa gi [day Def Rel 2SgS take 3P1O] Foe 2SgS-Impf break 3P1O 'It's [on the (same) day that you pick them (=melons)]x [focus] that you break them tx.'

The material following the focused constituent may also be rather complex. The fronted constituent and the clause containing its trace may be separated by intervening material, such as a conjoined clause that does not contain a coindexed trace (271). (271)

[hay di kaa yer o duu a ra daa] na [thing Def Rel 1P1S Impf get 3Sg Loc Emph] Foe yer o kaa, yer o jamna t 1P1S Impf come, 1P1S Impf share t '[Whatever we earn in (=as a result of) it]x [focus] we come (and) we share tx.'

When the trace is widely separated from the fronted constituent, or is located in a subordinated clause, it may be replaced by a resumptive pronoun (272). (272)

a. jombu-jombu woo di ye na nda yer guqguma Rdp-debris Dem Def PI Foe if 1P1S bend-over yer guna gi yer taar gi, 1P1S see 3 PI O 1P1S touch 3 PI Ο yer ο gar kuntur key η a yo goo^ a ra 1P1S Impf find chunk small PI be" 3Sg Loc 'It's [those bitsx (of stone, brought out by ants)]x [focus] that, if we bend over and we look at them x and we touch them x , we find that small chunks (of stone) are in it.' b. tabaa na [ay maata kaa [a ben ay ga]] tobacco Foe [ISgS notice that [3SgS end ISg on]] 'It's tobaccox [focus] that I notice that I am out of it^.'

In (272a), the NP positions clearly coindexed with the focused constituent are in the second and third clauses of a three-clause sequence ('we bend over, we look at themx, we touch them x ') which functions en bloc as a conditional antecedent bound by nda 'if. Note gi 'them' twice as a resumptive pronoun coindexed with the focused constituent 'bits'. There is no clearly coindexed trace in the main clause ('we find that small chunks are in it'), although one might argue adventurously that 'bits' occurs

8.1 Focus constructions

169

logically in this clause in some way (On the basis of ...'). In (272b), the resumptive pronoun 'it' is the subject of a 'that' clause subordinated to the verb 'notice'. There remains the question whether Foe morpheme na forms a constituent with the preceding fronted constituent, serves as a complementizer introducing the following core sentence, or has an independent syntactic status. In other words, is English Beans I like or clefted It's beans that I like (with complementizer that) the better syntactic parallel to the KCh na construction? I find it difficult to make this decision on empirical rather than theory-internal grounds. In the focus construction, the fronted constituent and the core sentence are, in general, tightly knit prosodically. There are occasional textual examples where one detects a brief pause after na, but hesitations can also occur after that in English clefts due to processing considerations, cf. the free translation of (272b). Examples like (271) could be taken as evidence that na is bracketed with the preceding focalized constituent, but only if we consider the material intervening between na and the tracecontaining clause as being completely outside the focalization construction. However, it is preferable to bracket the type in (271) as 'NPX na [[we come] and [we share /, ]],' with the 'come' and 'share' clauses fused together (cf. §9.5.2), in which case we have no new information about how to bracket the na. If na formed a constituent with the focalized constituent, it would be reasonable to expect the two to occur together in truncated replies to WH questions. But na cannot surface after a bare focalized constituent. This is shown by the exchange in (273).

(273)

Q: mey na a who? Foe 3SgS 'Whomx did she hit tx ?' A: ay 'Me.'

kar hit

t ? i?

#ay na with Foe na would be ungrammatical. (A morphemically distinct ay na 'no I didn't' with Neg na functions as an echoic answer to a yes-no question, §8.2.1). On the other hand, if na were a complementizer bracketed with the core clause following the focalized constituent, we might expect na to be repeated in a second core clause attached to the same fronted focus. However, this putative construction, of the type #[Millet pudding [na we bought] (and) [na we ate]], did not occur in texts and was rejected by informants. Instead, we get a single na directly following the focused constituent, before the two parallel core clauses, as in (274). This casts doubt on the complementizer analysis of na. (274)

häysi di na [ay kar i] [ay wii t] dog Def Foe [ISgS hit t ] [ISgS kill t] 'It was the dogx [focus] that I struck tx .and (that) I killed tx.'

So na always occurs in the seam between the fronted constituent and the first following core sentence. This suggests that it has an independent syntactic position, not tightly bracketed with either.

170 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (275) shows that the trace may be in an infinitival VP that is separated from the focalized NP by an intervening serial verb.

h ysi di na ay baa ka dog Def Foe ISgS want Inf 'It was the dogx [focus] that I nearly killed tx .'

(275)

wii kill

t t

In (274), the two post-focus main clauses have the same subject, and in (275) we have a serial verb construction where both the serial verb baa and the VP ka wii arc required to share a logical subject. Attempts to elicit variants of the type (274) with two distinct subject NPs ('What [focus] was it that I saw tx and you heard tx ?', or 'It was the dogx [focus] that I hit tx and you killed t x ) produced asymmetrical constructions (276a-b). (276)

a. b.

maa na [ay guna i] [kaa π ta mom tj? what? Foe [ISgS see t] [Rel 2Sg Top hear /]? 'Whatx [focus] did I see tx that you heard tx Τ kooro na ay maata t [ni ta guna ga] hyena Foe ISgS perceive / [2Sg Top see 3SgO] 1 'It was the hyenax [focus] that I perceived that you saw it,. (from cue: 'It was the hyena that I heard and you saw.')

In (276a), the second of the hoped-for parallel main clauses took the form of a delayed relative clause with the focalized NP as head. In (276b), the 'see' clause with 2Sg subject is either an embedded indicative complement of maata or a clause outside the scope of the focalization construction; in any event, we get an overt 3SgO pronoun ga instead of a trace. Wide-scope negation of a focalization construction ('It was not X that ...') is expressed by embedding the entire positive focus construction under the higher-level negation a na ci... 'it is not (the case) that..." (§9.3.2), as in (277). (277)

a na ci [[kooro di kaa ay guna] na 3SgS Neg be [[hyena Def Rel ISgS see] Foe ni maata t] 2SgS hear t] 'It was not [the hyena x which I saw tx ] [focus] that you heard tx .'

I.e., 'you heard something other than the hyena which I saw.' This is logically and syntactically distinct from a construction with a focus extracted from a core sentence with narrow scope negation, as in (278). (278)

kooro di na ay na wii t hyena Def Foe ISgS Neg kill t 'It was the hyena, [focus] that I did not kill tx.'

8.1 Focus constructions

171

A focused PP often omits the Foe morpheme na. When the postposition is kuna, as in (279), one can suspect haplology, kuna na reducing to surface [kuna]. In this case it is debatable which of the two underlying na syllables is deleted. (279)

wallaahi bara [[[yerkoy hinni] nda [a mise]] daa kuna] by-God must [[[God pity] with [3Sg manner]] Emph Loc] yer o kamba gi 1P1S Impf hold 3P1O 'By God, it is [in God's pity and (in) His manner] [focus] that we treat them (=donkeys).'

However, Foe na can also be omitted after some other postpositions, though perhaps not so frequently as with kuna. It is often omitted after Dat se even when the dative PP functions as an argument of the verb, as with mey se 'to whom?' in a clause with verb 'give', see (295c) in §8.2.2. maa se 'why?' usually omits na, though this is partly because REASON as a thematic relation may be syntactically external to the core clause within which focalization operate, see discussion of (307c) in §8.2.3, below. Omission of na is not usual after the other Locative postposition, ra, as seen in (280). (280)

[qga kamba ra] na a goo t [3SgF hand Loc] Foe 3SgS be t, 'It's [in His (God's) handj [focus] that it (=rain) is tx.'

8.1.2 Subject focus constructions The na construction (preceding section) is used for focus on any NP, PP, or adverbial that would ordinarily follow the verb. This includes all NPs other than the subject, which alone of basic arguments always precedes the verb. When the subject NP is focused, simple fronting of this NP (leaving a coindexed trace) would be stringvacuous, (28la) being converted into (28Ib): (281)

a. b.

[NP] - MAN morphemes - verb - ... [NP], - tx - MAN morphemes - verb

If the Foe morpheme na were added to (28Ib) in order to differentiate the subjectfocus construction (28Ib) from the simple (28la), there would be a serious risk of ambiguity, since na is also the (perfective) Neg morpheme. A subject-focus construction (282a), with null MAN marking (indicative perfective positive) would be homophonous with a simple Neg sentence (282b). (282)

a. b.

[NP]X - na - tx - (null MAN marking) - verb -... [NP] - na - verb -...

172 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization Whether or not such language-specific functional considerations played the role of evolutionary filter, preventing (28Ib) or (282a) from becoming established as the basic subject-focus construction, Koyra Chiina has a quite different construction (283). (283)

[NP] - rjga - MAN morphemes - verb -...

The rjga morpheme, which we label SFoc (Subject Focus), can arguably be morphemically identified with the 3SgF morpheme rjga (PI rjgi-yd), see §4.1.1 and §8.4. However, in the subject-focus construction (283), the rjga is invariant, regardless of the pronominal person or number of the fronted subject. The fronted subject may itself be a true 3SgF rjga as in (284a). We have a singular NP in (284b), a plural NP in (284c), and a 1P1S pronoun in (284d). (284)

a.

haya di yo kul, rjga rjga taka gi thing Def PI all, 3SgF SFoc create 3P1O 'All things, it's He (=God) [focus] who created them.' b. jaman di rjga kata ga season Def SFoc bring 3SgO 'It's the season (=current situation) [focus] which brought it about.' c. [yer junubu yo] ga jendi baana ma kar [1P1 sin PI] SFoc prevent rain Subju hit 'It's our sins [focus] that have prevented rain from falling.' d. [maijgazse woo di yo] yer daa rjga goy gi [warehouse Dem Def PI] 1P1S EmphSFocwork 3P1O 'Those warehouses, it was we ourselves [focus] who worked on (=built) them.'

In (285a-d), a nonzero MAN morpheme intervenes between rjga and the verb, as the schema in (283) allows. The nonzero MAN morphemes are Subju ma (285a), ImpfNeg si (285b), Neg na (285c), and Impf o (285d). In the cases with negation, the negative has scope only over the backgrounded core sentence. Thus (285c) means 'it's my whole head that did not bring it up' rather than 'it's not my whole head that brought it up.' (285)

a.

b.

c.

nda a na ci jaman di rjga ma hasara if 3SgS Neg be season Def SFoc Subju be-ruined 'if it is not (the case that) it is [the times (= economic situation)] [focus] which are bad' i hayni di ye nin qga si hin^ ka kaa a-foo 3P1 millet Def PI only SFoc ImpfNeg can Inf become Absol-one 'Its [just their (millet) grains] [focus] that cannot turn out the same.' sanda ay bomo di kul rjga na jow-kata ga like ISg head Def all SFoc Neg take-Centrip 3SgO 'That is to say, it's [my whole head] [focus] that did not bring it up (=pay attention).'

8.1 Focus constructions d.

173

a ci haya kaa 3SgS be thing Rel ntende rjga^ o fatta-ndi ga dow di cire ants S Foe Impf exit-Caus 3SgO sand Def under 'It (=limestone) is a thing which it's ants [focus] that bring it out from under the ground.'

The combination rjga plus Impf ο is transcribed gga^ ο but pronounced [rjgo:]. It is homophonous with rjgu^ o, consisting of Logo/3ReflSg pronoun plus Impf. SFoc gga always appears in the seam between an overt subject NP (which may be a pronoun) and an immediately following overt core sentence. This is the same pattern we saw in the preceding section with Foe na. Therefore ijga is not present in truncated (echoic) answers, consisting of just the focalized subject NP, to WH ('who?', 'what?') questions (286). (286)

Q: mey qga koyl who? SFoc go? 'Who [focus] went?' A: ay Ί (did).'

As with Foe na, presumably qga would not be repeated before the second of two parallel main clauses associated with a single fronted focal NP. However, this point may be moot, since efforts to elicit such sentences always produced asymmetrical constructions in which the second clause appeared in the form of an infinitival VP beginning with Inf ka, as in (287). (287)

mey rjga_^ o ta kar h ysi di [ka wii muSidi]! who? S Foe Impf Put hit dog Def [Inf kill cat DefJ? 'Who [focus] will hit the dog to kill the cat?' (from cue: 'Who will hit the dog and kill the cat?')

In short, SFoc rjga parallels non-subject Foe na, which likewise occurs only between a nonzero fronted constituent and a nonzero core sentence. So we have the same difficulty deciding how rjga is to be bracketed syntactically that we had with na. However, in the case of rjga there is an additional option, namely, to treat it as the surface subject of the core sentence. Note that SFoc rjga directly precedes MAN morphemes (if any) and then the verb, exactly as does the subject NP of a simple sentence. It would then be a kind of specialized, resumptive pronoun invariant in form but nonetheless coindexed with the NP fronted out of its original subject position. The homophony in the Timbuktu dialect between SFoc rjga and 3SgF rjga is interesting in this connection. One difference between SFoc Tjga and Foe na is that Tjga does not allow intervening clauses between itself and the core sentence for which the fronted NP is the logical subject. I have no textual examples with an intervening conditional antecedent (#'It's millet, rjga, if you cook it, tx gets soft'), nor any examples with an intervening

174 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization conjoined sentence that has a distinct subject NP (#'It's millet^ rjga you eat itx and tx is delicious'). In other words, SFoc rjga occurs in precisely the surface positions where the original subject NP would occur had it not been fronted. The idea that rjga is a special resumptive subject pronoun would also account for its absence in truncated answers (#'My mother rjga1) noted above. The one weakness of this analysis is that, since SFoc rjga must immediately follow the fronted constituent with no intervening material, the fronting process for subject-focus must be constrained in a way that does not apply to non-subject-focus fronting (see end of preceding section). As with Foe na, wide-scope negation of SFoc constructions ('it was not X [focus] who ...') requires a higher-level negation a na ci... 'it is not (the case) that ..." under which is embedded the positive focalization construction, as in (288a). The logically distinct type with narrow-scope negation is illustrated in (288b). (288)

a.

a

na

ci

[ay

rjga^

o

ta

wii häysi di]

3 S g S N e g b e [ISg SFoc Impf Fut kill dog 'It's not I [focus] who will kill the dog.' b.

DefJ

mey rjga na wii [war ra] rebelle fool who? SFoc N eg kill [2P1 Loc] rebel one? 'Who among you (=which of you) has not killed a rebel?'

In (288b), the war ra 'in you(Pl)' is a delayed partitive for the fronted 'who?'. The identificational quasi-verb nono (§7.1.1), as in nono 'it is (a) Y,' does not permit its sole overt NP to be focalized. We therefore cannot tell on this basis whether the "Y" NP is a syntactic subject (requiring SFoc rjga} or a nonsubject (requiring Foe nä). It is also not possible to focalize out of the main clause in an impersonal bara construction, of the form bara plus embedded clause (§7.1.3). This is an obvious consequence of the lack of any NP in the main (as opposed to embedded) clause. On the other hand, focalization is possible with the locational quasi-verbs, positive goo and negative sii (§7.1.2), and with the identificational copula verb ci (§7.1.1). See the interrogative examples (295a) and (296b-c) in §8.2.2, below. However, in the case of ci, an emphatic and apparently focalized subject NP may dispense with SFoc rjga, as seen by the absence of this morpheme in (289). (289)

[alhawa di yo daa] ci woo [passion Def PI Emph] be Dem 'Passion(s) is exactly what that (behavior) is.'

di Def

8.2 Questions and answers 8.2.1 Polar (yes-no) questions and answers KCh has no reliable polar interrogative morpheme. The usual simple polar question has the form of an assertion, usually with rising terminal intonation (290a). Some younger speakers use clause-initial eska (Fr est-ce que ...?), which is widespread in

8.2 Questions and answers

175

Malian languages. A morpheme kona (variants koni, kooni) is attested as an apparent clause-initial polar interrogative marker (290b), but it is very rare in my data and is probably a dialectal borrowing from Fulfulde. (290)

a.

b.

[saa di] jiiroo wor o tammahaa [time Def] this-year 2P1S Impf hope kaa wor ο fan hondul that 2P1S Impf farm dune? 'So, this year you(Pl) hope that you will raise crops on the dune?' aywa, kona war na fey? well, yes-no? 2P1S Neg get-wet 'Well, didn't you(Pl) get wet?'

When a set of alternative propositions is presented to the addressee, the conjunction wala Or' is normal at the beginning of the noninitial clauses, as in (291). (291)

a wane i-boyro di 3Sg Poss Absol-good Def sukal di ma tiisa sugar Def Subju do-very wala a ma sawa^ or 3SgS Subju equal

fita di

gaabi di

ma

oi be ka Inf a 3Sg

mom a ra, be-sensed 3Sg Loc, ra, wala Loc, or

bisa sukal di

gaabi

dil

leaf Def power Def Subju pass sugar Def power Def? 'Is it best for it (=tea) that sugar be very noticeable in it, or that it (=sugar) be moderate in it, or that the power (=taste) of the (tea) leaves exceed the power of the sugar?' In the case of simple polar questions, there is a logical choice between a proposed assertion and its negation. 'Did the blacksmith go to the market?' asks the addressee to choose between 'The blacksmith went to the market' and "The blacksmith did not go to the market.' The full logical form of the question is therefore something like 'Is "the blacksmith went to the market" true, or is "the blacksmith did not go to the market" true?' In KCh, even though the second disjunct is normally omitted, the Or* conjunction wala is frequently added to the first proposition (292). (292)

a.

b.

ciimi daa nono wala ? truth Emph it-is or ? 'It's quite true, or?' bor mey a ra hay a kaa n har wala ? person have 3Sg Loc thing Rel 2SgS say or ? One(=you) has something that you have said in (=about) it, or?'

Although wala logically connects two disjunct clauses, in (292) it functions indirectly as a kind of polar interrogative marker. German .... oder? '..., or?' following an affirmative sentence has a similar polar interrogative function.

176 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization The morpheme rjga! can be used in isolation to mean 'yes!'. Note that rjga elsewhere functions as the 3SgF pronoun, and as the SFoc (subject-focus) morpheme, but the etymological connection of the 'yes!' interjection to these grammatical morphemes is unclear. The form kalaa! means 'no!', again as an isolation form. However, rjga! and kalaa! are not the preferred responses to polar questions. Instead, wherever possible, the response to a yes-no question is a truncated echo clause consisting of a pronominal subject and a nonzero MAN morpheme, the remainder of the clause being omitted. (293a) shows positive and negative responses to a question in imperfective aspect, while (293b) shows a negative reply to a question in the unmarked perfective aspect. (293)

a.

b.

Q: no-o dira suba wala ? 2SgS-Impf travel tomorrow or? 'Will you(Sg) travel tomorrow?' A: ay goo ISgS Impf '(Yes) I will.' A: ay sii ISgS ImpfNeg '(No) I will not.' Q: n dira bii wala ? 2SgS travel yesterday or? 'Did you travel yesterday?' A: ay na ISgS Neg '(No) I did not.'

It is possible to add the Emph particle yaa to such an answer, hence ay goo yaa 'Yes I will.' The one case where such a truncated answer is not possible is a positive answer to a perfective aspect question, since here the MAN slot is vacant, both positive polarity and perfective aspect being unmarked. In this case, the only possibility is rjga! 'yes!'. It follows that kalaa!, the corresponding 'no!' interjection, is not obligatory as an answer to any yes-no question, and is not particularly common in this function. However, kalaa! can also be used to contradict or challenge an assertion by an interlocutor. In (293a), note that Impf goo and its negation sii have their full forms, in contrast to ο - go and si when followed by an overt VP. These same full forms are also used as locational quasi-verbs meaning 'be (present)' and 'not be (present), be absent' (§7.1.2).

8.2.2 WH-questions The morphologically simple interrogative stems are given in (294); we mention some important interrogative compounds ('how?', 'why?', when?' in the following section).

8.2 Questions and answers (294)

form

gloss

comments

mey

'who?'

homophone: 'have, own*

maa man maije ~ merje foo mote

'what?' 'where?' 'how much?' 'which?' 'how?'

homophone: 'name' — adjective or noun (also 'how many?') adjective; homophones: One', 'greet' (in greeting formulae)

177

WH-interrogative forms are normally fronted, and occur in either the nonsubject or subject focus constructions described above. Exceptional cases involving lack of fronting (i.e., in situ WH interrogatives) are discussed in §8.2.4. For maa used as a verb '(be, do) what?', see discussion of (248) in §7.1.5, above. Examples of the first three stems in (294) are given in (295-97). (295)

mey qga sii nee? who? SFoc not-be here? 'Who [focus] is not here?' b. mey yo na n guna hentu ? who? PI Foe 2SgS see over-there? 'Whomx(Pl) [focus] did you see tx over there?' c. mey se π ηοο njerfu dil who? Dat 2SgS give money Def? 'To whom [focus] did you give the money?'

(296)

a.

(297)

a.

maa

na

wor

o

fan

hondu jiiroo ?

what? Foe 2P1S Impf grow dune this-year 'What (crop) [focus] will you(Pl) grow on the dune this year?' b. maa yo tjga ci hay di yo kaa^ wor ο what? PI SFoc be thing Def PI Ref 2P1S Impf tammahaa kaa i-i hins-s ka boon, hondu ? hope that 3PlS-Impf can Inf be-good, dune? 'What [focus] are the things (=crops) that you(Pl) hope they can turn out well, on the dune?' c. maa ijga oi hay di kaa no-o hin ka dam what? SFoc be thing Def Rel 2SgS-Impf caiT Inf do kaa kate n jaari di ma si mussu ? Rel bring 2Sg day Def Subju Neg be-lost? 'What [focus] is the thing that you(Sg) can do to insure that your day is not wasted?' a. man na a-a koy koyne ? where? Foe 3SgS-Impf go again 'Where [focus] will he (=sick donkey) go any more?' b. man na ni hun ? where? Foe 2SgS leave 'Where [focus] did you come from?'

man 'where?' is not normally followed by a Locative postposition.

178 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization Note, incidentally, that focalization and therefore WH-formation is possible with locational quasi-verb 500 'be' or sii 'not be' (295a) and with equational ci (296b-c). In the case of ci, overt focalization with SFoc tjga is optionally omitted, as in (298a-c), contrast (298d) with qga present. With gga absent, the WH-word may occur in preverbal (298a-b) or postverbal (298c) position.

(298)

me£ ci woo ? who? be Dem 'Who is that?' b. mey^ ci nil who? be 2Sg 'Who are you?' c. woo ci meyl Dem be who? 'That is who?' d. mey ijga ci amiit^ di ? who? SFoc be chief Def 'Who [focus] is the chief?' a.

The freedom with which the two NPs in an equational ci clause switch positions reflects the fact that this is the only transitive verb which is commutative in the mathematical sense, A ci B being logically interchangeable with B ci A. Another syntactic consequence of this is that when one of the equated constituents is focalized, it is always treated as the subject. Therefore we can get overt SFoc gga but never (nonsubject) Foe na in WH interrogatives and other focalized ci sentences. Corresponding to the pattern A ijga ci B 'it is A [focus] that is B' seen in (296b-c), we never get #A na B ci 'it is Ax [focus] that B is tx.' mey 'who?' and maa 'what?' may occur in the conjoined NP construction X nda Y 'X and Y'. They take the "Y" position following nda 'and, with'. The entire conjunction is normally fronted, as in (299).

(299)

a.

b.

[ni nda mey] na a [2Sg and who?] Foe 3SgS '[You and whom (else)]x did she hit tx ?' [ni nda mey] ijga wii [2Sg and who?] SFoc kill 'You and who (else) killed it?'

kar hit

ga 1 3SgO?

mey 'who?' and maa 'what?' normally take singular form, even when it is not known what the number of denoted referents is. However, they may take PI yo to specify plurality (295b, 296b). We next consider marje ~ merje. This form can be used syntactically as a fullfledged NP (300a,d-e), or it may quantify over an indefinite noun (300b) with no change in form. When denoting the price of a commodity ('for ten riyals'), there is generally no 'for' postposition although the constituent with marje ~ merje functions

8.2 Questions and answers

179

as a kind of adverbial phrase (300c). In this unit-price context, a distributive reduplication is also possible (§5.4.4).

(300)

a.

b. c.

d. e.

0 koy sawa-nda woo di^^f marje Impf Dem Def be-equal-with how-much? go [seefaa woo raj? Dem [CFA Loc]? 'That (price in riyals) equals how much, in CFA francs?' [gurumba merje] na yee hima ka jow t ? [piece how-many?] Foe ISgSImpf ought Inf take r ? 'How many pieces, should I take tx T [alhoor-ije foo kul] [limestone-child one all] marje na no-o neere ga ? how-much? Foe 2SgS-Impf see 3SgO 'Each limestone block, how much (=at what price) do you sell it?' marje ijga sii nee ? how-many? SFoc not-be here? 'How many (of them) are not here?' merje ηga £i lokkol-ije yo ? how-many? SFoc be school-child PI ? 'How many (of them) are students?'

The question arises whether to take marje ~ merje as basically an adjective or a noun. If we take it as a lexical adjective, the modifying use (300b) is unproblematic. The use as NP head (300a,d-e) would then be interpreted as involving a zero Absol prefix (§4.4.3, §4.5.1), which is slightly awkward but not outlandish. If we take it as a noun, the head-noun use is straightforward, but the apparently modifying use would have to be reinterpreted as involving a loose compound NP marje in which the NP has partitive function ('how much of NP?'). With equational ci 'be', merje takes postverbal position, as in the question in (301a), or it may be fronted in the usual focalization construction, as in (301b). (301)

a.

Q: yer δι merje ? 1P1S be how-many? 'We are how many?' A: yer δι i-taaci 1P1S be Absoi-four 'We are four' (= 'There are four of us.') b. Q: marje rjga goo nee? how-many? SFoc be here 'How many (of them) are here?'

Interrogative foo 'which?' is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the numeral foo One'. Both occur as modifying adjectives after a noun, so that ije foo can mean either One child' or 'which child?'. When used as heads of NPs in the absence of a

180 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization noun, Timbuktu speakers distinguish absolute forms a-foo One' and /-/bo 'which one?', though this test is not reliable in other dialects (Appendixes 1,2). Nevertheless, there are further diagnostics through which one can usually distinguish One' from 'which?'. First, 'which?' phrases are generally fronted and focalized, while NPs containing One' have no special tendency in this direction. Second, 'which?' phrases often co-occur with a Locative PP in partitive function, which may precede the fronted 'which?' phrase or may occur in postverbal position. Third, many occurrences of 'which?' are in a few high-frequency combinations discussed in the next section: saa foo 'which time?, when?', mise foo and variants '(in) which manner?, how?', and hinne foo 'which quantity?, what size?'. Some examples of foo 'which?' are in (302), the first two containing Loc PPs in partitive function. (302)

a.

a-foo ga baa [i raj? Absol-which? SFoc be-better [3P1 Loc] ? 'Which of them is better (or: the best)?' b. [yer kuna a-foo] ga jeen-ndal [1P1 Loc Absol-which?] SFoc be-oTd? 'Which of us is older (or: is the oldest)?' c. farka foo na n deyl donkey which? Foe 2SgS buy ? 'Which donkey did you buy?'

The form mote 'how?', which is also found in other Songhay languages (especially HS), seems confined to certain not-very-common greetings in KCh, like those in (303). (303)

a.

war ciji kani motel 2P1 night sleep how? 'How did you sleep?' b. huu boro di yo house person Def PI '(And) how are your relatives?'

motel how?

As often with greetings ('How do you do?'), this formula is difficult even to parse grammatically (is kani 'sleep, go to bed' here a verbal noun?). The positioning of the WH-word mote at the end of the sentence is also aberrant. The productive 'how?' construction in KCh is described in the following section. 8.2.3 Composite WH-interrogatives ('how?', 'why?', 'when?') The most important compound interrogative phrases are those in (304).

8.2 Questions and answers (304) a.

form mise foo ~ musa foo

b. c.

taka foo hinne foo maa se saa foo

181

free gloss literal gloss a) how? manner which? b) what sort (of thing)? (= mise foo) way which? what amount? amount which? what for? why? what?Dat when? time which?

mise foo (variants musa foo, muso foo) 'how? what manner?, what kind?' is the common form for (304a) 'how?' or 'what sort (of thing)?' in the Timbuktu dialect. The sense 'how?' is typically expressed by mise foox ... nda tx ? with a stranded postverbal Instr-Comit preposition nda. Without this nda, mise foo normally functions as an NP and is best glossed 'what sort (of thing)?' Both mise and its dialectal equivalent taka are abstract, semantically "light" nouns meaning 'way, manner, nature, kind (of thing)', and require additional modification to have real semantic substance. The NP function of mise foo is illustrated in (305). Note that as a simple NP, it may be subject or nonsubject in the core clause, resulting in subject focus (305a) and nonsubject focus (305b) constructions, respectively. (305)

a.

mise foo nga ci humbar di taka di manner which?SFoc be waterbag Def manner Def? 'What kind ofthing is a (goatskin) waterbag?' b. no-o dam ga hay a ra, wala 2SgS-Impf put 3SgO thing Loc, or musa foo na no-o dam a sei manner which? Foe 2SgS-Impf do 3Sg Dat? 'Do you put it (=melon) in something? Or what kind of thing do you do to it?'

(305a) is literally 'It is what manner (of thing) that is the (essential) manner of the waterbag?' (mise and taka are near-synonyms). The instrumental type mise foo ... (nda) 'how?' is illustrated in (306a) with stranded nda present, and in the less common type (306b) with nda omitted. Since the fronted NP cannot be the subject of the core sentence, the nonsubject focus construction is required. (306)

a.

b.

[musa foo] na a-a tiisa ga [nda \.]1 [manner which?] Foe 3SgS-Impf make 3SgO [with f ] ? '[What way], [focus] does it (=rain) make it with tx ?' (= 'How does it make it?') [musa foo] na wor o kow ga t? [manner which?] Foe 2P1S Impf remove 3SgO f ? '[What way], [focus] do you(Pl) remove it [(with) tx]T (= 'How do you remove it?')

182

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

maa se 'why?' ('what? Dat') has a somewhat ambiguous syntactic relationship to the core of its clause. It is normally fronted like other WH-interrogatives representing core relations like direct object. It can take the usual Focus morpheme na, as in (307b), but most often this morpheme is absent, as in (307a). Moreover, a fronted maa se (without na) may actually co-occur with an immediately following second fronted constituent which does have a following na, as in (307c). (307c) suggests that REASON as a thematic relation is, or at least can be, somewhat external to the core of the clause and therefore outside of the framework of clause-internal focalization. The two very different syntactic statuses of 'why?' in (307b) and (307c) make it difficult to interpret the very common simple pattern (307a). One could interpret 'why?' in (307a) as being focalized, the Focus morpheme na simply being omitted (always a possibility with focalized PPs). Or one could interpret it as belonging to an outer syntactic layer as in (307c). (307)

a.

b.

c.

[maa se] n koyl [what? Dat] 2SgS go 'Why did you go?' [maa se] na yer o koyl [what? Dat] Foe 1P1S Impf go 'Why [focus] are we going?' [maa se] [mobil ressort nin] na wor o taasit [what? Dat] [vehicle spring only] Foe 2P1S Impf seek? 'Why is it [only car springs] [focus] that you(Pl) seek?'

Clause-initial maa se is also used by some speakers in the sense 'because ...' (308). (308)

mere tarkunda yer morjgo a se but elephant 1P1S fail 3Sg Dat mise kul kaa yer hin^ ka koor ga nda manner all Rel 1P1S can Inf seize 3SgO with [maa se] a-a tßsa ka beer, [what? Dat] 3SgS-Impf do-very Inf be-big, a beer di bow 3Sg bigness Def be-big 'But an elephant, we have failed (to find) for it any way with which we can capture it, because it is extremely large, its size is great.'

saa foo 'when?', unlike maa se 'why?', is regularly focalized, as in (309). (309)

saa foo na yer o time which? Foe 1P1S Impf 'When [focus] will we go (away)?'

diral travel?

8.2 Questions and answers

183

8.2.4 In situ (non-fronted) WH-interrogatives As we have pointed out in the two preceding sections, WH-interrogative words arc normally fronted and occur in one of the focus constructions. This pattern is very strong for 'who?', 'what?', 'where?', 'when?', and 'how?'. On the other hand, the interrogatives foo 'which?' and merje 'how much? how many?', when functioning as modifiers within larger NPs, optionally remain in place (in situ) in the core sentence. This is probably because the larger NP would have to be fronted as a whole, and "heavy" NPs are less easy to front than are simple interrogatives like 'who?'. Examples of m situ interrogative foo and merje are in (310).

(310)

a.

b.

saa kaa wor o kow ga time Rel 2P1S Impf remove 3SgO ka fatta-ndi ga terey, a £i [hinne foo] ? Inf exit-Caus 3SgO outside, 3SgS be [quantity which?] 'When you(Pl) remove it (=limestone) and take it outside, it is what size?' [saa di] nda^ war ffisa gi, [time Def] if "" 2P1S prepare 3P1O, a-foo kul go hima ka jow [ije merje]! one all Impf should Inf take [child how-many?] 'So, when you(Pl) have made them, each one should take how many pieces?'

In (31 Ob), the interrogative quantifier merje is under the logical scope of the quantified subject NP a-foo kul. The merje phrase can be fronted (without changing the logical scope relations), but speakers seem to prefer the pattern in (31 Ob), which harmonizes the syntactic and logical relationships, ije 'child' is used in certain contexts as a kind of unit marker with quantifiers.

8.2.5 Questions embedded under matrix verbs ('know', 'ask', etc.) Interrogatives are often embedded under verbs of uncertainty. 'Wonder, be curious', 'find out', and 'inquire' are the most obvious, but 'know' and 'see* may also take interrogative complements (Ί don't know who hit me,' Ί want to see whether he comes'). Embedded polar (yes-no) questions can be glossed with 'whether'. The construction is basically a disjunction (Ί don't know whether he hit me' can be expanded as Ί don't know whether he hit me, or he didn't me'). In KCh, wala is used before each such embedded clause, in both monoclausal and biclausal cases. For examples and discussion see §9.5.4. We now consider what happens to the WH-interrogative forms (§8.2.2). The general principle is that the WH-interrogative stem or phrase is replaced by a noninterrogative generic NP (normally indefinite in form) which functions as direct object or other complement of the higher verb. The remainder of the WH-interrogative clause

184

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

surfaces in the form of a relative clause with the generic NP as head. For example, embedded 'who?' and 'what?' are replaced by '(a) person who ...' and '(a) thing which ...', asin(311). (311)

a.

ay

si

bey

[bor

kaa

koy]

ISgS ImpfNeg know [person Rel go] don't know who has gone.' b. wirci woo ta yer moqgo ka bey [haya kaa nono] disease Dem Top IPlSbe-unable Inf know [thing Rel it-is] 'That diseasex, we have been unable to discover what it is.' Likewise, embedded 'where?' is expressed as '(a) place (in) which ...'. The logically complete form would include a Loc postposition, but this is normally omitted, as in (312). (312)

ndooso woo, ni bey ka guna pick-ax Dem, 2SgS know Inf see [nan^ kaa^ i-i kar gap. [place Ref 3PlS-Impf hit 3SgO]? 'Well, that pick-axx, have you(Sg) ever seen where they forge itx?'

Similarly, marje ~ merje 'how much? how many?' is replaced by an NP involving generic hinne 'amount, extent, quantity', either as head of a relative clause, or m situ as in (313). (313)

saa di kaa rjgu guna time Def Rel LogoSgS see [[[a wane] alkadar di] hinne di] [[[3Sg Poss] size Def] amount Def] '(Hex said:) when hex saw how much hisy size was ..."

foo 'which?' is the one morphologically simple interrogative which has no noninterrogative counterpart. In embedded questions, foo can be retained but wala Or, whether' may be added at the beginning of the clause to make its interrogative status clear, as in (314).

(314)

yee ISgSImpf

kaa ta hää ga come Inf inquire 3SgO

[wala [addeliil foo ga] [yee sallam [a ga]] [or [reason which?on] [ISgSImpf greet [3Sg on]] [a si tuuri]]

[3SgS ImpfNeg reply]] was coming to ask him for what reason did he not respond when I greeted him.'

8.2 Questions and answers

185

Alternatively, (314) could be rephrased with h 'inquire' as a doubly-transitive verb, the direct object being expressed as the noun addelill di 'the reason' with an attached Rel clause (Ί asked [to him] the reason for which ...'). The compound interrogatives (§8.2.3) are generally quite easy to embed, since most of them already consist of a generic noun plus foo 'which?'. The corresponding embedded questions omit the foo and show up as heads of relatives. For mise foo (and variants) 'how?' and taka foo 'how?', both literally 'way (=manner) which?', we get embeddings like those in (315). (315)

a.

bara addama-jje ma bey must human Subju know [musox kaa rjgu hin^ ka duu ga nda l] [manner Rel LogoSgS can Inf get 3SgO with t] Ά person must know how (lit.: the manner by which) he (or she) can get it.' b. ... ka bey [taka^ kaa yer ο jow ga nda i] ... Inf know [manner Rel 1 PI S Impf take 3SgO with t ] '...to know the manner by which (=the best way) for us to take it.'

maa se 'why?' ("what? Dat") can be replaced by hay kaa se ... 'thing for which ...,' or by expressions like addeliil foo 'which reason?' in (314). 8.2.6 'whatchamacallit?' The basic 'whatchamacallit?' expressions are hajje (variant haya-jje) and haywana. Both are probably related to haya 'thing'. The first is analysable as haya or its reduced variant hay plus compound final -ije 'child' in diminutive sense (for the phonology see §3.8.3). The second form may be a variant of hay wane with Poss wane. These forms are used as indefinites ('something or other, gizmo, thingamajig') or in self-directed questions ('whatchamacallit?'). In either case, they replace more precise expressions that have been temporarily forgotten (316). (316)

ay kar ga nda ISgS hit 3SgO with Ί hit it with whatchamacallit.'

haywanat whatchamacallit?

The 'whatchamacallit?' stems can also be used as verbs, intransitive or transitive; see discussion of (249a-b) in §7.1.5. 8.2.7 Tag questions The tag question is n bey ?, literally 'did you(Sg) know?' can be used regardless of the form of the preceding assertion. It does not seem to be very common, at least in Timbuktu. The yes-no interrogative wala can be used after (as well as at the beginning

186 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization of) an assertion used as a yes-no interrogative (§8.2.1), so a special tag question is not desperately needed.

8.3 Relative clause constructions Relative clauses are characterized by Rel morpheme kaa. This is homophonous with kaa 'come, become' and, more interestingly, with an indicative 'that' complementizer kaa (§9.5.8). Rel kaa can be distinguished from the 'that' complementizer in that the Rel morpheme is always preceded by an overt NP functioning as head. There is no productive headless relative construction of the type '(one) who ...,' though in some of its uses the 'that' complementizer kaa (§9.5.8) might be construed as a headless relative or as having a phonologically unrealized FACT noun as head. The primary relative construction is of the general type NPX Rel [... tx ...] where the head NP (which is itself part of the higher, "matrix" clause) is coindexed with an argument of the lower clause shown within brackets, although only a phonologically null "trace" occurs in the original syntactic position within the relative clause. However, under certain conditions we can get an overt (resumptive) pronoun within the relative clause. In general, relative clauses have the same type of extraction seen in focalization (including WH-interrogatives). The head NP preceding Rel kaa has the maximal structure in (317), that is, it may be any "core NP" (in the sense of §5.A) with the further possibility of adding kul 'all' (in relatives better glossed 'every' or 'any'). A few examples are in (318a-c). (317) (318)

possessor - N - Adj - Num - Dem - Def - PI - kul a.

b.

c.

[hay a di yo] kaa wor o dooney [thing Def PI] Rel 2P1S Impf be-accustomed ka gar alhoor guusu woo ye ra Inf find limestone hole Dem PI Loc 'the things, that you(Pl) commonly find tx in those limestone pits' [hay kul] kaa nono, a-a bana ga [thing all] Rel exist, 3SgS-Impf buy 3SgO 'Everythingx that it is tx, it (=donkey) will repay (=compensate for) it.·' [hay] kaa jaman kate, no-o harjga ga [nda ga] [thing] Rel season bring, 2SgS-Impf follow 3SgO [with 3SgO] 'Whatever, the current situationy brings tx, you(Sg) will accept ity in spite of it,.'

These examples illustrate three basic possibilities for the head NP: definite (318a), universal (318b), and indefinite (318c). They also show how "light" (low-content) nouns can be used as head NPs, accounting for the absence of headless relatives. Some of these light nouns have specialized shortened forms when directly followed by Rel kaa (or by kul 'all'), see §3.8.7.

8.3 Relative clause constructions

187

Postpositions and certain discourse-functional (DF) morphemes, however, are not normally added directly to the head NP. Instead, they follow complete NPs and so arc positioned at the end of the relative clause (§8.3.10). The fact that Rel kaa can occur with either a trace tx or a pronoun in the original position of the relativized NP causes analytical difficulties. If we consistently got the trace, we would be inclined to take kaa as a true relative pronoun that has been fronted (extracted) from its original position inside the relative clause ('the man whom I saw'). If we consistently got a pronoun (coreferential to the head NP), we would be inclined to take kaa as a more abstract, nonpronominal complementizer ('the man such that I saw him'). There seems to be a certain tension between these two analyses in KCh. The fact that phonological processes can neutralize the difference between kaa t ('Rel tx '), kaa^ a ('Rel 3SgS'), and even kaa^ a-a ('Rel 3SgS-Impf), does not make the analysis any easier (§8.3.1). The best evidence for a relative-pronoun analysis is the fact that postpositions arc regularly attached to kaa rather than remaining stranded in postverbal position within the relative clause (§8.3.3). On the other hand, taking Rel kaa as a more abstract nonpronominal complementizer might enable us to reconcile it with the indicative complementizer kaa (§9.5.8). There are a fair number of textual examples which seem to require the more abstract reading. We can gloss Rel kaa in these cases as 'in such a way that ..." or 'when ..." Some examples are given in §8.3.10. However, these are arguably reduced from e.g. saa di kaa ... 'the time when ...', musoo di kaa ... 'the way that ...', and other genuine relative constructions, the logical "head NPs" being omitted. If these examples can be incorporated into an analysis involving extracted relative pronoun kaa, then the only remaining problem is how to handle the cases with resumptive pronouns coreferential to a (true) head NP. Our general approach will be to consider such cases as responses to production and processing difficulties, whether due to "island" constraints (cf. §8.3.8) or reflecting simple "restarts" whereby the relative clause takes the form of an unsubordinated main clause. Although relative clauses normally directly follow the head NP, sometimes a relative clause is delayed (extraposed) so that it follows the main clause containing the head NP. This is apparently obligatory with identificational nono (319a), and is common with simple existential or locational predications (319b). (319)

a.

b.

nda haya nono kaa no-o bey if thing it-is Rel 2SgS-Impf know 'if it is something that you know (of)' [wirci bobo yo] goo dooti kaa i si safari gi... [disease many PI] be there Rel 3PlSImpfNeg treat 3P1O ... 'There are many ailments, that they can't cure themx (unless ...).'

For a variation on the type (319a) where the relativized NP is also the focus of the Rel clause, see (432) in §8.6.5, below. The Rel clause in (319b) has an overt resumptive pronoun, 3P1O gi, and may have been restarted as a main clause; such restarts are presumably common in extraposed relatives.

188 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization Head NPs may be personal pronouns ('you who ...') or nouns functioning as surrogates for them ('you are a person who ...'). In such cases, the pronoun sometimes recurs inside the relative clause ('you, who youx were sitting here'). Examples are given in §8.3.1. When the head NP is generic boro 'someone', coreferential pronouns inside the relative clause are often expressed as 2Sg pronouns in generic function; see §10.3.1. Some high-frequency "light" nouns tend to have shortened forms before Rel kaa (§3.8.7).

8.3.1 Relativization of subject NPs If Rel kaa is fronted (extracted) from the relative clause, we should get subject relatives of the form (320a). If kaa is a nonpronominal complementizer, we should get a nonzero pronominal subject as in (320b). (320)

a. b.

head NPX - kaax - tx - MAN morphemes - verb -... head NPX - kaa - [3Sg or 3P1]X - MAN morphemes - verb - ...

It is not so easy as it might appear to distinguish these two constructions. Consider (321). (321)

alhawa di craving Def ka dam Inf put 'the impulse that

kaa cendu Rel pull ga^ a 3SgO 3Sg induces the people

[boro di yo] [person Def PI] ra Loc to put it (=spice) in it (tea).'

There is nothing phonetically audible in the blank in (321), suggesting a trace as in (320a). But the ga_^ a ra at the end of (321), pronounced [gaira], reminds us that vocalic contractions occur in this language. One could therefore rewrite the critical part of (321) as alhawa di kaa^a cendu with 3SgS a, which would point to the pattern (320b). In fact, since the context suggests imperfective aspect, we could elaborate this representation further as underlying //alhawa di kaa a o cendu// with Impf o. Since 3SgS a and Impf o combine to give a-a (§3.G.I), this could reasonably yield alhawa di kaa_a-a. cendu, where kaa_^a-ais realized phonetically as [ka:]. Impf o has a variant go (rather uncommon in Timbuktu). Though not obligatory after kaa, as (321) shows, go when pressed into service conveniently avoids contraction: [tarkunda woo yo] kaa go kaa dooti '[those elephants] which come (kaa) there.' Here once again, it is phonologically possible to posit a 3SgS pronoun a between Rel kaa and Impf go, i.e., ... kaa_^ a go ... . See also (325), below, where versions with and without go were elicited. To decide between (320a) and (320b), we consider cases where a plural subject is relativized on. Here, if an underlying subject pronoun is present it should be 3P1S i or 3P1S Impf i-i, either of which should contract with kaa to give phonetic [kii]. In fact we regularly get [ka:] and not #[ki:], as seen in (322a). This strongly suggests the

8.3 Relative clause constructions 189 absence of a subject pronoun, favoring (320a) as the correct representation. Compare the subject relative (322a) with a nonsubject relative (322b), the latter clearly including a 3P1S pronoun (not coreferential to the head NP). In (322a), we hear [ka:] before the verb. In (322b), we hear either [ka: i:] with separate articulation of the pronominal, or contracted [ki:], but in either case we can detect the presence of the 3P1 morpheme. (322)

a. jere di yo kaa windi-windi ga side Def PI R el Rdp-encircle 3SgO 'the sides that go around it' b. woo di kaa i-i kow frigidaire di ye Dem Def R el 3PlS-Impf take refrigerator Def PI 'that (stuff)x whichx theyy take tx out from refrigerators'

ra Loc

While (322a) is the usual pattern for plural-subject relatives, there are some textual examples where the subject pronoun (coreferential to the head NP) does show up on the surface. This appears to be the case when there is a slight hesitation after Rel kaa, whether or not the pause is conspicuous enough to be represented with a dash or comma in my transcription. Examples in (323); cf. (392f) in §8.5.2, below.

(323)

a.

b.

boro person

foo one

kaa Rel

i-i

yo PI

goo dooti be there

gaijga

baana

ma

kar

3PlS-Impf prevent rain Subju hit 'Some men, are there who, theyx can prevent rain from falling." alkaafun £i tuuri-ije moo kaa—, alkaafun be tree-child also Rel—, a-a mey nafa beer 3SgS-Impf have usefulness big 'alkaafun (a spice) is a tree product, also which,—, it, has a great benefit.'

While one might conclude from the examples in (323) that overt subject pronouns should be recognized in all subject relatives, and retranscribe e.g. (322a) accordingly, it is a dubious practice to base the analysis of smoothly pronounced constructions on the form of interrupted and perhaps internally restarted counterparts. Moreover, hesitations result in overt subject pronouns not only in relative clauses as in (323), but also in main clauses where a kind of resumptive subject pronoun appears when a pause occurs during or just after the utterance of a subject NP, as in (324a-b).

(324)

a.

nda gaabi—, a

bisa

gaabi, dee^ a-a

hin^

ga

b.

if force—,3SgS exceed force, then 3SgS-Impf master 3SgO 'If a force, exceeds a (=another) forcey, then it, overwhelms ity.' nda baali di—, a mon, dee_^ a-a hasara if flesh Def, 3 S g S be-removed, then 3SgS-Impf be-ruined 'If the flesh,—, (if) it, is erased (=gets rotten), then it,'s ruined.'

190 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization I doubt that a competent syntactician would use (324a-b) to demonstrate that the fluently spoken counterparts (e.g. nda gaabi bisa gaabi) have underlying third person pronouns following the subject NPs (#//nda gaabi a bisa gaabi/Γ). Similarly, it should not be rashly concluded from (323) that subject relatives require subject pronouns following Rel kaa. When the head NP is a first or second person pronoun (Ί who ...', 'you who ...'), or a surrogate for such a pronoun (Ί am are a person who ...'), the coreferential arguments within the relative clause may be expressed by the same pronominal category as the head (325a), or may follow the apparently subjectless construction described above (325b-c). (325)

a.

b.

c.

ma na ci har, kaa no-o bey yenje 2SgSNeg be man, Rel 2SgS-Impf know fighting 'You(Sg) are not a man who you know (about) fighting.' ma na i boro kaa bey fan 2SgS Neg be person Rel know fanning 'You are not a man who knows farming.' ni kaa go bey fan 2SgS Rel Impf know farming 'you who know farming'

Again the type (325b-c) without overt subject pronoun appears to be normal. The type in (325a) seems to be favored by a hesitation (indicated by the comma), and did not occur in elicitation. When the relativized noun is itself focalized within the Rel clause, it appears in the form of a "3F" pronoun such as 3SgF qga; see (432) in §8.6.5. However, one can again suspect that a restart has occurred. A further argument against underlying representations with resumptive third person subject pronouns is the grammaticality of kaa nono 'which it is', see (467a) in §9.3.3. This is because the identificational quasi-verb ποπό does not allow surface expression of the implied "subject" referent, and hence disallows e.g. #a nono 'it is' or an imperfective variant #a-a nono. The data seem to point to two distinct analyses for subject relatives. One the one hand, there are occasional examples where kaa is clearly followed by an overt subject pronominal, suggesting that kaa is a nonpronominal relativizer. The relevant examples include (323a-b) and (325a). However, these and other similar examples arguably involve mid-stream restarts, resulting in main-clause instead of embedded structures for the "relative" clause. In the great majority of smoothly uttered examples, textual or elicited, kaa in subject relatives is followed by no audible pronominal subject marker, and in the case of nono 'it-is' no such pronominal subject is possible underlyingly. Although a surface [ka:] is in many cases phonologically compatible with a contracted multi-morphemic underlying string including 3SgS a, e.g. kaa^ a or imperfective kaa^ a-a, absence of an anticipated parallel pronunciation [ki:] in cases where the (resumptive) subject pronoun should be 3P1 i is a serious blow to such an analysis. So the bulk of the evidence favors the view that kaa is a relative pronoun extracted out of subject position, leaving (at most) a phonologically null trace in the

8.3 Relative clause constructions

191

original subject position. Though this is our preferred analysis, we will not use trace notation tx in transcriptions except where it is specifically relevant.

8.3.2 Relativization of direct objects and complements of 'give' Relatives from simple transitive clauses are straightforward formally. The normal pattern is seen in (326). (326)

a.

b.

boro di kaa [yer ta] guna t [yer koyroo kuna] person Def Rel [1P1S Top] see / [1P1 this-town Loc] 'the man, who(m)x we saw tx in this town of ours' ay kaa no-o guna t ISg Rel 2SgS-Impf see t Ί, whom, you see tx (in front of you)'

The relativized NP is not overtly realized within the relative clause, even when it is a non-third-person pronoun (326b). We indicate its location by the trace notation tx. A resumptive object pronoun appears exceptionally in a few textual examples (327). (327)

a δι haya kaa ntende jjga^ o fatta-ndi ga 3SgSbe thing Rel ant SFoc Impf exit-Caus 3SgO [dow di cire] [sand Def under] 'It (=limestone) is something, which, ants [focus] bring it, out (from) under the ground.'

In elicitation, informants reject resumptive pronouns in simple direct-object relatives. When a resumptive pronoun does occur, it is generally attributable to a sentence-internal restart, or to the effect of an intervening non-direct-object focalization as in (327), which we return to as (43 la) in §8.6.5, below. In short, the type in (326) with traces (not resumptive pronouns) for the direct-object NPs is regular. The verbs noo 'give' and cerbu 'show' semantically require a theme (patient) and a recipient ('... gave the book to him'). Relevant sentences either express the theme as direct object and the recipient as dative PP, or use an alternative construction unique to these verbs with both complements expressed as direct objects ('... gave him the book'), see §9.1.2. The available examples indicate that the object-plus-dative alternative is required as the basis for relativizing the theme NP (328), the effect being that the recipient is expressed in dative form. (328)

a.

b.

taam di kaa ay noo shoe Def Rel ISgS give 'the shoes which I gave to Abba' huu di kaa ay^ oerbu house Def Rel ISgS show 'the house, which I showed tx to A [name]'

[A [A

se] Dat]

[A [A

se] Dat]

192 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization As for relativization on the recipient NP, the object-plus-dative construction (329) is strongly preferred. Alternatives based on the double-object construction were sometimes rejected (330a), sometimes accepted (330b). The observable difference is the presence of Dat se after the Rel morpheme kaa (see following section for relativization on PPs). (329)

a.

b.

(330)

a. b.

har di kaa se ay man Def Rel Dat ISgS 'the man to whom I gave the money' ay kaa se n noo ISg Rel Dat 2SgS give Ί, to whom you gave the money' Whar di kaa ay noo njerfu di ay kaa n noo njerfu di

noo give

njerfu di money Def

njerfu money

di Def

(= 329a) (= 329b)

8.3.3 Relativization of NP complements of postpositions In this section we consider relatives of the type 'the manx whomx we gave the money to tx\ where the relativized NP functions as complement of dative or another postposition. While Rel kaa is always fronted, the postposition may either be fronted along with it or else remain in situ. In the latter case, a resumptive pronoun is obligatory. (331)

a.

b.

barjgu di yo [kaa ra] na hari di^ o ta hun swamp Def PI [Rel Loc] Foe water Def Impf Top leave 'the flooded areasx in (=from) whichx the water has receded' barjgu kaa hari si hun [a ra] tamba swamp Rel water ImpfNeg leave [3S g Loc] quick 'a flooded area, whichx water doesn't recede quickly in (=from) it,'

In (33 la), kaa ra 'in which' is fronted as a whole, leaving nothing stranded in the relative clause (except arguably for a PP trace, not shown). In (33 Ib), kaa is fronted as usual, but Loc ra remains within the relative clause and requires a resumptive 3Sg pronoun. A version of (33Ib) with a trace instead of a pronoun in the postverbal PP would be ungrammatical. As with subject and object relatives treated in the two preceding sections, the different output possibilities for PP relatives appear to point to two different syntactic structures. In (33la), kaa is a true relative pronoun, forming part of a surface PP which has been fronted as a unit, leaving behind at most a PP trace. In (33 Ib), kaa is a nonpronominal relativizer, allowing an overt pronoun to occur in the postverbal PP. The type (33la) is preferred. It is clearly more common than the type (33Ib) when the PP in question is grammatically central (e.g. a Dat object, or an abstract spatial PP functioning as complement of a verb of position or motion). PPs expressing more peripheral or complex meanings, like the partitive Loc PPs in (332), are more likely to remain in postverbal position and therefore require the relative pattern (33Ib).

8.3 Relative clause constructions

(332)

193

yer o taasi naijgu keyna, kaa yer baa [a ra] 1P1S Impf seek place small, Rel IPlSbreak [3Sg Loc] hal yer ma foti [a ra] haya keyna until 1P1S Subju knock-off [3Sg Loc] thing small 'We look for [a small place (=quarry)]x thatx we have worked (some) of it,, so that we may knock off a little of it,.'

The point relates to the first a ra 'in it'; the second a ra belongs to a subjunctive clause not under the scope of the relative operator. Among other combinations attested in texts of kaa and a postposition are Dat kaa se 'to whom, for which', Loc kaa kuna 'in which', kaa ga 'by (from) which', and kaa banda 'after (behind) which*.

8.3.4 Relativization of NP complements of nda 'with, and' Unlike postpositions, Instr-Comit preposition nda (§5.11) is readily stranded postverbally when its NP complement is relativized, nda is never fronted with kaa, just as it is never fronted with a WH-interrogative stem (§9.V.3) or other focalized constituent. In (333a), the stranded instrumental nda is associated with taka 'manner'. In (333b), the stranded comitative nda is associated with hay di 'the thing'. (333)

a.

b.

saa di yer ο hima ka yee-ndi^ a se alakal, time Def 1 PIS Impf should Inf return-Caus 3Sg Dat mind, ka bey taka kaa yer o jow ga nda t Inf know manner Rel 1P1S Impf take 3SgO with t 'So, we should be wary of it (=tea), to know the (best) way, to take it [with f, ].' [hay di kaa yerkoy kuboy-ndijey [nda 177 ft woo yo [thing Def Rel God meet-CausTlSgO [with*]] be Dem PI 'The thing, that, God caused me to meet [with tx ] was those (people).'

The stranded nda typically occurs in immediate postverbal position, following any postverbal pronominal direct objects or pronominal PPs. The fact that nda is not followed in (333a-b) by 3SgO ga (coindexed with the fronted NP) strongly suggests that here kaa is a relative pronoun extracted from the instrumental-comitative phrase, leaving behind at most a trace. In a conjunction of the form A nda Β Ά and B', relativization out of one of the conjuncts is somewhat awkward, and my impression is that such relative clauses often take main-clause form (i.e. with resumptive pronoun), as in Ί saw the man, who, [[he, and you] are neighbors],' or else are reformulated in ways which avoid conjunction. Consider the textual example (334a) and the elicited sentence (334b).

194 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (334)

a.

a wannasu [rjgu boro di yo se] 3SgS chat [3ReflSg person Def PI Dat] kaa nda gi^ o maan Rel with 3P1O Impf be-near 'Hex spoke to his relativesy whox (tx) and theyy are close (kin).' b. a cii-nda woo di ye 3SgS speak-with Dem Def PI kaa [gga nda gij o maan Rel [3SgF and 3P1] Impf be-near 'Hex spoke with those (persons)y whoy hex and theyy are close.'

In the grammatical but uncommon pattern (334a), the (extraposed) relative clause follows the Dative postposition, and its head NP is coreferential to the 3Sg subject of 'chat'. If this is correct, we could represent the relative clause as ... kaax fa nda gi ...], with a trace in the left conjunct position. Native speakers might alternatively analyse it as ... [kaa [nda gi]]..., with kaa actually in left-conjunct position. In either case, a literal translation is bad English because of subjacency (island) constraints (cf. #the man who [tx and I] went). But since the KCh "conjunction" nda 'and' (better glossed 'with') induces stronger asymmetries between left and right conjuncts than does English and, it is not impossible that a KCh left conjunct would be accessible to relativization (cf. §5.11.1). In the more common pattern (334b), on the other hand, the conjunction has nonzero pronominal conjuncts on both left (3SgF qga) and right (3P1O gi). By virtue of position, Rel kaa in (334b) is likely to be coreferential to 'those (persons)' rather than to 'he', but the following material has main-clause form. It is difficult even to be sure that kaa in (334b) is a true Rel morpheme, since kaa can also be used as a clause-initial complementizer (§8.3.10, §9.5.8). Further examples of main-clause form for the "embedded" clause are in (335). (335)

a.

woo ci bar di kaa [qga nda ay baba^] Dem be man Def Rel [3SgF and ISg father] o hima ka koy Impf ought Inf go 'This is the manx who [hex and my father] are supposed to go.' b. woo ci bar di kaa [ay nda gaj Dem be man Def Rel [ISgS and 3SgO] ο hima ka koy mowti [nda Sere] Impf ought Inf go Mopti [with friend] 'This is the manx who [I and hex] are supposed to go to Mopti together.' c. ay na duu bor kaa [ay nda ga^] ISgS Neg get person Rel [ISgS and 3SgO] o nin hari-futu Impf drink water-bad Ί haven't found anyone to drink beer with.'

8.3 Relative clause constructions

195

I know of no examples where a right conjunct is expressed as zero (i.e., as a trace) due to relativization. The only attested zeroes are in left conjunct position (334a), and even this is uncommon. (333) and (334a) support the analysis of kaa as a relative pronoun extracted out of the core sentence, leaving (at most) a trace. (334b) and (335), whose relative clause has main-clause form except for the initial kaa, can be taken as supporting the analysis with kaa as a nonpronominal complementizer requiring resumptive pronouns. However, (334b) and (335) can also be thought of as cases where island constraints block or disfavor normal relativization strategies, requiring speakers to restart the embedded clause as a main clause.

8.3.5 Relativization of possessor NP When the relativized NP is a possessor, the possessed noun is often fronted along with kaa. A resumptive possessive pronoun is normally not present, as shown in (336). (336)

bar nono kaa kaabe di^ man it-is R el beard Def 'It is a man whose beard is white.'

o Impf

korey be-white

This is a common and fully grammatical construction. However, there are other examples where kaa is fronted alone, leaving the possessed noun behind. In (337a), the possessed NP is clause subject, so the 3Sg possessive pronoun a immediately follows Rel kaa. In (337b), the possessed NP is postverbal. (337)

a.

b.

har duqgura nono kaa [a kaabe wooj o kumi man short it-is Rel [3 S g beard Dem] Impf drag hal dow woo ra until sand Dem Loc 'It (=dwarf) is a short man who, this beard of his drags down to the ground.' har nono kaa ay kow [a kaabe di] man it-is Rel ISgS take-out [3Sg beard DefJ 'It is a man who, I pulled out hisx beard.'

On the whole, (336) is the preferred pattern. The type in (337) could be taken as another "restart" pattern ('the man who—, his beard ...'). However, the subtype (337b) with postverbal possessed NP seems rather more fully grammatical (and textually common) than some other "restart" examples mentioned in earlier sections. The problem is that extracting an entire possessed NP, especially out of postverbal position, is rather more "costly" in terms of cognitive effort than most other relativization extractions. The simple example (336) is relatively easy to process online since kaa kaabe di turns out to be the subject of the relative clause. If we use a similar construction in (337b), giving har nono kaa kaabe di ay kow, the listener doing real-time processing must first recognize that kaabe di is a possessed noun

196 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization rather than a separate subject NP, i.e., parsing as har nono [kaa kaabe di] ... instead of har nono [kaa] [kaabe di] ... , which might well be the initial guess. Then the listener must recognize that kaa kaabe di is not the subject of the sentence as initially hypothesized; it is, rather, an NP fronted from an original postverbal complement position. In (337b) as uttered, on-line processing would seem to be easier. Further complexity (and cognitive strain) is risked by combining a possessor with a postposition. In such cases there are several possible outputs: a) front the entire PP, b) front just the possessed NP, or c) front just the possessor. Alternatives (b-c) but not (a) require a resumptive pronoun in the residual postverbal PP. Examples of (a) and (b) are given in (338).

(338)

a.

woo ci har di [kaa naa se] Dem be man Def [Re I mother Dat] ay noo njerfu di ISgS give money Def 'This is the man to whose mother I gave the money.'

har nono [kaa bomo di]

hambir sii^

a

ga

man it-is [Rel head Def] hair be-not 3Sg on 'He is a man whose headx there is no hair on it,.' In (338b), one could argue that bomo di is really a preposed topical constituent, so that no real extraction is present. 8.3.6 Adverbial relatives without postpositions Locational and temporal adverbials within core sentences are often really truncated PPs that lack explicit spatial postpositions. Corresponding relative clauses likewise usually lack postpositions. Some of the relevant relative constructions function as high-frequency adverbial clauses; these are listed in (339). (339) a.

b. c.

d.

form saa kaa saa di kaa saa kul kaa nan_kaa narjgu di kaa nan^kul kaa banw^kaa handi di kaa han_^kul kaa mise (-muso)kaa mise (~ musoo) di kaa mise kul kaa

morphemes time Rel time Def Rel time all Rel place Rel place Def Rel place all Rel day Rel day Def Rel day all Rel manner Rel manner Def Rel manner all Rel

free gloss 'when ...' 'when ...' 'whenever ..., any time ...' 'where ..., when ...' 'the place where..." 'wherever..., whenever...' 'when ...' 'the day (time) when ...' 'whenever ..., any time ...' 'how ..." 'the way ..." 'any way ..., however ...'

8.3 Relative clause constructions

197

The Rel kaa is optionally extended as kaa na with no change in meaning. This is attested chiefly in adverbial relative phrases like saa di kaa na 'when ...', see (513b) in §9.5.5, below, and in muso kaa na 'the way ...', see (151) in §5.9.10, above. There are also some cases of kaa na as an extension of 'that' complementizer kaa... (§9.5.8). kaa na is rather uncommon in any of these functions in Timbutku itself. Using internal reconstruction, we might conclude that the optional na is historically the (nonsubject) Focus morpheme. However, no focalization is involved, and the occurrence of ne as a variant of na in this combination in DjCh makes us hesitate about the historical connection with the Focus morpheme. In interlinear morpheme glosses, we represent this optional na as 0. Fortunately, there is little likelihood of confusion between this na and (perfective) Negative na, the latter being unlikely to follow saa di kaa or muso kaa directly. mise has variants muso, musoo, etc. On the forms of the nouns in (339b-c), cf. §3.8.7. Some speakers use taka 'manner' as an alternative to mise, hence taka di kaa 'the way ...'. The extended form taka di kaa na is also attested. However, mise is overwhelmingly predominant in Timbuktu in these adverbial relatives (and WHinterrogatives). There is fairly little difference between the simple variants and those with di, especially in saa (di) kaa, where I suspect that the variant without di (between two long syllables) may simply be a syncopated pronunciation. A few examples of the forms in (339) are given in (340). (340)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

saa kaa a tibi gi yene, yer ο din fondo time Rel 3SgS put-on 3P1O ISgDat, 1P1S Impf take road 'When he has saddled them (donkeys) up for me, we will take the road.' saa di kaa addabba di yo_^ ο δη time Def Rel animal Def PI Impf speak '(back) when the animals spoke' nan_^ kul kaa woo go dam jirbi-iiye place all Rel Dem Impf do sleep-seven 'whenever it (=rain) lasts a week' no-o kow gi, [handi di kaa n kow gi] 2SgS-Impf take 3P1O, [day Def Rel 2SgS take 3P1O] na no-o baa gi Foe 2SgS-Impf break 3P1O 'You harvest them (=melons). The (same) day on which you harvest them, you break them.' boro foo si bey musa kaa nono person one ImpfNeg know manner Rel exist 'Nobody knows how it will be.'

For a specifically instrumental or comitative reading, mise and its variants cooccur with a stranded (usually clause-final) nda 'with', as in (341).

198 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (341)

oara a ma hin ka mey lakal kuna must 3SgS Subju can Inf have mind Loc [misaJt kaa qgu^ o hin ka koor ga nda t manner Re I LogoSgS Impf can Inf catch 3SgO with t 'He must be able to have in his mind a wayx to handle it [by tx ].'

Infrequently, mise (or variant) takes a Loc postposition, as in (342). (342)

hal ggi-ye ta ma hin^ ka rjaa, until 3P1F Top Subju carT Inf eat, musa kaa kuna hal i ma duu ka goy manner Rel Loc until 3P1S Subju do-then Inf work '(We starve) so they (=donkeys)!( may be able to eat, in such a way that theyx may proceed to work (later).'

Spatial deictic adverbials nee 'here' and occasionally doodi ~ dooti 'there' are relativizable (343a-b), as are temporal expressions like moreyda 'now' (343c).

(343)

ay too nee kaa Χ Υ huu di gaa goo ISgS arrive here Rel Χ Υ house Def Presentative be Ί arrived right here where the house of X and Υ (names) is.' b. yee bisa yee koy doodi kaa yer o goy ISgSImpf pass ISgSImpfgo there Rel 1P1S Impf work Ί go past (it) and go there where we will (be able to) work.' c. moreyda kaa baana^ woo kar now Rel rain Dem hit 'now that this rain has fallen'

a.

8.3.7 Multiple relative clauses (conjoined or recursive) In a conjoined relative, two or more relative clauses beginning with Rel kaa follow a single head NP. In (344), four relative clauses (a direct-object relative and three subject relatives) follow a single instance of the head NP boro di 'the person'. (344)

boro di [kaa yer ta guna yer koyroo kuna] person Def [Rel 1P1 Top see 1P1 this-town Loc] [kaa guna ga], [kaa yenje a banda], [Rel see 3SgO], [Rel fight 3Sg behind], [kaa yenje a banda moo] a-a huna h [Rel fight 3Sg behind also] 3SgS-Impf live today "The manx whomx we have seen tx in this town of ours, whox saw it (=dwarf), who, fought with it, (and) whox fought with it also, hex is alive today.'

8.3 Relative clause constructions

199

There is no 'and' or 'but' conjunction that can be used to conjoin multiple relative clauses. The closest thing to such a conjunction is nda 'and, with', but this takes NPs and similar constituents (such as adverbials) rather than clauses, VPs, or verbs as its conjuncts. Due to the absence of such a conjunction, it is impossible to determine whether the multiple RCs (relative clauses) in (344) are jointly subordinated to the same head NP, as in NP [RCJ [RC2] [RC3] [RC4], or are hierarchically nested, each RC taking the entire preceding complex in its scope, as in [[[[NP RC1] RC2] RC3] RC4]. The overall denotation is the same in either case. In a recursive (or stacked) relative construction, a relative clause RC, attached to NP, in the matrix clause itself contains an NP2 to which a second relative clause RC2 is appended, and so forth ('This is [the cat that ate [the rat that lived in [the house that [Jack built]]]]'). In (345), 'man* is head of a (complex) relative clause containing 'secrets', which heads its own relative clause. (345)

ma na δϊ bar, kaa no-o bey yenje, 2SgS Neg be man, R el 2SgS-Impf know fighting, no-o mey moo sim yo 2SgS-Impf have also secret PI kaa no-o hin_^ ka kamba a se Rel 2SgS-Impf caiT Inf hold 3Sg Dat 'You are not a manx who [(you,) know fighting, (or) you, have secretSy that [you, can hold ty (in reserve) for it (=dwarf)]]·'

8.3.8 Relativization out of complex syntactic structures Most serial-verb constructions (§9.G) involve a high-frequency verb, often with aspectual value, followed by Inf[initive] ka and a substantive VP containing the main propositional information. In other words, these serial verbs resemble English modals (can, may, have, be). In such cases, the whole construction functions as a tightly knit though composite VP. It is easy to relativize out of the substantive VP across the intervening serial verb. Examples are in (346), the serial verbs being hin 'can' and dooney 'be accustomed'. (346)

a.

maa qga £i hay di kaa no-o hin^ ka dam t ? what? SFoc be thing Def Rel 2SgS-Impf can Inf do f ? 'What is the thingx that, you(Sg) can do tx ?' b. maa rjga ci hay a di yo kaa wor ο dooney what? SFoc be thing Def PI Rel 2P1S Impf be-accustomed ka gar t [alhoor guusu woo ye ra] ? Inf find t [limestone hole Dem PI Loc] ? 'What are the things, that, you(Pl) are accustomed to find tz in the limestone pits?'

In such tight-knit serial-verb constructions, only occasionally do we find a resumptive pronoun suggesting a mid-sentence "restart," as in (347).

200 (347)

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization a ci haya kaa yer si hin^ ka fur ga 3SgS be thing Rel 1P1S ImpfNeg can Inf abandon 3SgO 'It (=tea) is something^ that, we can't leave (=go without) it,.'

Other serial-verb constructions are more diffuse, involving two or more independently structured VPs. Here, relativization by extraction out of noninitial VPs eventually becomes too complex to achieve. Consider now the rather complex example (348), with relative clauses indented. (348)

NP

[farka ciimi-ciimi di] [donkey truth-truth Defj Rell kaa i-i har mana farka nono, Rel 3PlS-Impf say 2SgDatdonkey it-is, Rel2 kaa [nda n kaar a ga a-a koy, Rel [if 2SgS mount 3SgO on 3SgS-Impf go, " nda n jeeje ga a-a koy, ni if 2SgS load 3SgO 3SgS-Impf go, 2SgS " si jow bundu, ni si jow barju], ImpfNeg take stick, 2SgS ImpfNeg take strap], allaara jember guu no-o kow ga riyal thousand five 2SgS-Impf take 3SgO Ά real donkeyx, [Rell:] (of) which, they tell you it's a (real) donkey, [Rel2:] which x [if you(Sg) mount on itx it, will go, (and) if you load itx itx will go, without your taking a stick, without your taking a whipping strap], for 5000 riyals you will take (=can purchase) it.'

Here we have two conjoined relative clauses attached to the same initial head NP; the complex NP including these relative clauses functions as a preposed topical NP, corresponding to 3Sg 'it' in the following clause ('for 5000 riyals ...'). In the first relative clause (Rell), we could argue that the relativized NP is the logical "subject" of the identificational quasi-verb nono (§7.1.1). However, nono does not allow surface expression of the understood "subject," so we cannot take such an NP as part of the syntax of the clause in Rell. In the longer and internally quite complex Rel2, note particularly the two conditional sequences, each of which contains resumptive 3Sg pronouns (coreferential to the head NP) in both antecedent and consequent clauses. This suggests that a) relativization out of a conditional antecedent is not permitted on syntactic grounds (cf. "island" constraints), and b) relativization by extraction is not permitted out of a conditional consequent because of production-processing complications due to the separation between the consequent clause and the fronted relative pronoun. The situation is the same in English as the free translation suggests. There does not seem to be any difficulty extracting a relative pronoun out of nonsubject position in a subjunctive clause (§9.6) subordinated to a matrix verb like baa 'want' or har 'say', as seen in (349).

8.3 Relative clause constructions (349)

a.

b.

201

woo £i maqgoro di kaa yee baa Dem be mango Def R el ISgSImpf want [ay ma gaa t j [ISgS Subju eat t] "This is the mango, that I want to eat tx .' woo oi maqgoro di kaa [ay baba] har Dem be mango Def Rel [ISg father] say [ay ma ηaa t] [ISgS Subju eat t] 'This is the mango, that my father told me to eat tx.'

However, it appears that the subject of a subjunctive clause cannot be extracted by relativization. This makes sense since subjunctive clauses are always finite (i.e. have overt subjects). An example showing a resumptive pronoun in an embedded subjunctive is (350). (350)

6oro di kaa ay har [a ma batu ey dooti] person Def Rel ISgS say [3SgS Subju await ISgO there] 'a person, whom I told to (lit· "said that he,") wait for me there'

For relativization of focused NPs, see §8.6.5.

8.3.9 DF morphemes and postpositions operating on the head NP The entire structure consisting of the head NP and the following relative clause beginning with kaa constitutes an expanded NP, which functions as an argument in the higher (matrix) clause. This matrix NP is, in principle, treated like any other NP in the matrix clause in terms of constituent ordering and addition of any applicable DF (discourse-functional) morphemes or adpositions. With prepositions or quasi-prepositions that precede the NPs to which they attach (primarily nda 'with', alsojaa 'since', and bal 'until'), there is no way to tell whether the head NP alone or the entire expanded NP including the RC (relative clause) is the relevant constituent. The structures nda [NP RC] and [nda NP] RC, for example, arc indistinguishable. However, postpositions and most DF morphemes follow rather than precede the constituents over which they have scope. For any such morpheme X, we should have no difficulty distinguishing the structures [NP X] RC and [NP RC] X. Before proceeding to the data, we should also recognize that the pattern [NP RC] X, while more natural syntactically, might cause processing difficulties, since the X morpheme might be misanalysed as having narrow scope over the relative clause or some constituent thereof. For example, if the RC ends in NP2, the sequence [NP, [κ ...NP2]J X might be mis-parsed as NP, [RC ...[NP2 X]], where X takes narrow scope over NP2 rather than broad scope over the extended NP headed by NP,. Basically, the DF morphemes work as follows: a) the emphatic morphemes (including Only' and 'also') attach directly to the head NP, preceding the relative clause; b) focus morphemes come after the entire extended NP; c) topic marking

202

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

appears to occur preferentially at the end of the entire extended NP but occasionally occurs on the head NP. The texts have many examples of Emph daa, moo 'also', and nin Only* directly following the head NP, preceding Rel kaa. Examples are in (351).

(351)

a.

b.

c.

a

jumbu-jumbu albarka-nte di daa 3SgS Rdp-descend powerful Def Emph kaa yer dooney ka bey t Rel 1P1S Impf be-accustomed Inf know t 'It (=rain) fell, the same powerful one^ that we are accustomed to experience tx.' a na ci [woo duqgura futu woo] moo kaa 3SgS Neg be [Dem shortness bad Dem] also Rel [boro di yoj o taameysa qga n a a dam t [person Def PI] Impf distinguish 3SgF Foe 3SgS put / 'It isn't that terrible shortnessx either, (by) whichx the people distinguish (him), (thinking) it (=this)x is whatx he presents tx.' seytaan taka nono kaa a-a mey saa yo nin devil kind it-is Rel 3SgS-Impf have time PI only kaa a-a tun ka dira Rel 3SgS-Impf arise Inf walk 'It's a kind of devil that just has times (in) which it gets up and walks.'

The fact that these morphemes are directly attached to the head NP may reflect a strategy to avoid the processing problems mentioned above. However, their emphatic flavor may also favor a conspicuous site next to the head NP (rather than at the tail end of a following relative clause). Foe na and SFoc rjga always occur in the seam between the fronted focalized constituent and the remainder of the clause (§8.1). This ordering is respected when the fronted constituent is an extended NP including a relative clause, as in (352).

(352)

[ije [child

na Foe

keyna small

yee

di Def

kaa Rel ta Top

wii kill

kar hit

ay ISg

häySi

di]

dog

DefJ

ISgS-Impf 'It's [the childx who killed my dog]x [focus] that I will hit tx .'

The Foe or SFoc morpheme cannot be inserted between the head NP, here ije keyna di, and an immediately following RC. The only alternative to (352) would be to delay (extrapose) the heavy relative clause ('It's the childx [focus] that I will hit, whox killed my dog'). Such "afterthought" relatives do occur, as in any language, but they are irrelevant to the point at hand. Our examples of topic morphemes involve weak Top ta. Consider (353).

8.3 Relative clause constructions (353)

a.

b.

203

ammaa [hay di kaa nafa] ta, Q alkaafun but [thing Def R el be-useful] Top, be alkaafun 'But the thing that (really) is beneficial (to tea) is alkaafun (spice).' [wannasu kaa ra na i kar ni] ta, [story Rel Loc Foe 3 PIS hit 2SgO] Top, woo di wannasu ni si dam ga Dem Def story 2SgS ImpfNeg do 3SgO Ά story in which they hit you, the story, of that you won't do (=tell)

it,·' As the bracketing shows, ta takes scope over the entire extended NP that precedes it. In (353b), one might be tempted to interpret ta as having narrow scope over the immediately preceding 2SgO pronoun ni, but clause-internal ta is uncommon with postverbal constituents, especially direct object enclitic pronouns. The natural parsing strategy, then, is to take ta at the end of a relative clause as having the broad scope shown by the bracketing. A similar default parsing strategy would not work so well with the Emph and other DF morphemes in (351a-c), which are readily amenable to either narrow- or wide-scope readings when clause-final. However, I have found a handful of examples of ta directly following a head NP, as in (354). (354)

ammaa mise ta kaa sii boro kamba, but manner Top Rel be-not person hand, boro si hin a ra hin-ey person ImpfNeg master 3Sg Loc power 'But a condition that isn't in the hands of man, no-one can have control over it.'

We now consider what happens when the extended NP is part of a matrix-clause PP. If the relative clause happens to end in a simple NP (in direct-object or adverbial function), the postposition might be mis-parsed as taking narrow scope over this relative-clause-final NP instead of wide scope over the entire extended NP. In other words, (355a) might be mis-parsed as (355b). (355)

a. b.

[NPX Jtaa, [... tx ... NP y ]] Postp [NPX )taax [... tx... [NPy Postp]]]

Nevertheless, the pattern (355a) is grammatical, as in (356). In (356a), the listener might have a brief processing problem, but will eventually make the correct parse since 'kill' requires a direct (not Dat) object and since a recipient NP with 'give' takes Dat form. In (356b-c) the morphology provides telltale clues about constituent structure. In (356b), the fact that the 3Sg marker is ga rather than a uniquely identifies it as a direct object marker (not a postpositional complement). In (356c), the failure of the category combination ISg-Dat to take its usual postverbal enclitic form yene likewise forces the listener to identify ey as direct object.

204 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (356)

a.

b.

c.

ay noo njerfu di [bar di kaa wii h ySi di] se l SgS give money Def [man Def R el kill dog Def] Dat Ί gave the money to the man who killed the dog.' ay noo njerfu di [har di kaa kar ga] se ISgS give money Def [man Def Rel hit 3SgO] Dat Ί gave the money to the man who hit it.' ay noo njerfu di [har di kaa kaati ey] se ISgS give money Def [man Def Rel call !SgO]Dat Ί gave the money to the man who called to me.'

There are no particular processing difficulties when the relative clause ends in a constituent which rarely or never occurs as postpositional complement—e.g. a verb, certain adverbials (357a), or an already formed PP (357b). (357)

a.

b.

ay noo njerfu di ISgS give money Def [har di kaa goy nee] se [man Def R e 1 work here] Dat Ί gave the money to the man who works here.' ay noo njerfu di ISgS give money Def [alfaa di kaa gaara yene] se [holy-man Def Rel bless ISgDatJDat Ί gave the money to the holy man who blessed me.'

Although the type (355a), exemplified in (356-57), is always possible and seems to be preferred, we also find examples where the postposition is added directly to the head NP, with the relative clause following, as in (358). I interpret this as a delayed (extraposed) relative-clause construction. (358)

ay noo njerfu di alfaa di se [kaa gaara yene] ISgS give money Def holy-man Def Dat [Rel bless ISgDat] (= 357b)

8.3.10 kaa 'when ..." or 'such that...' (abstract adverbial relatives) Some apparent relative constructions permit or require a resumptive pronoun; see especially §8.6.5 for the partial incompatibility of focalization with relative-pronoun extraction. However, there are also some cases where kaa does not seem to function as a true relative pronoun, coindexed with a specific head NP and with a specific NP within the subordinated clause. Accordingly, there is no extraction and we find no "trace" in the relative clause proper. For example, in (359), we get an overt 3P1O pronominal gi, which we would expect to appear as zero if kaa were a true relative pronoun coindexed with 'the people'. This suggests that kaa in such examples has a more abstract sense ('when ...', 'in a situation where ...', 'in case ...').

8.3 Relative clause constructions 205 (359)

boro di yo^ o humoy i ra person Def PI Impf bathe 3P1 Loc [kaa hari di yo si maan gi] [Rel water Def PI ImpfNeg be-near 3P1O] 'The people, bathe in them (pools), in case the waters (=rivers) are not near themx.'

One way to interpret (359) is in terms of a "restart" of the relative clause in mainclause form. Taking the kaa clause as a restrictive relative modifying 'the people', we could argue that the ideal form of (359) would have the relative clause immediately follow this head NP: 'the people [whom the rivers are not near] bathe in them (pools)'. The delayed appearance (extraposition) of the relative clause might then have facilitated the restart. Indeed, quite often in texts there are hesitations after kaa in a context clearly calling for a restrictive relative reading; schematically, Ί ate the mango which—, you brought it.' In such instances, a restart analysis is appropriate. My assistants would often repeat such examples in more fluent syntactic form, without the restart and with the regular relative clause syntax (including traces): Ί ate the mango which you brought.' However, in other examples like (359) there is no evident hesitation, and assistants did not modify them during transcription sessions. In (360), the second kaa can be glossed 'when ...'. (360)

[jaa saa di kaa ay sinti mana [a wannasu di]] [since time Def Rel ISgS begin 2SgDat [3Sg talk Def]] na ay dumbu mana a wane ciini di, Foe ISgS cut 2SgDat 3Sg Poss discussion Def, kaa ay bar mana attey si mey haya kul Rel ISgS say 2SgDat tea ImpfNeg have thing all kaa ga na a doo kala faraa Rel on Foe 3SgS originate except fatigue 'Right from the time I began the talk of it (=tea) with you, I analysed ("cut") for you the discussion of it, when I told you (that) tea has nothing on which it originated (=was founded) other than fatigue.'

This example begins with saa di kaa... 'when ...' (literally, 'the time which ...'), itself a relative construction (§8.3.6). This prompts us to consider the possibility that the medial kaa ... 'when ...' is in fact compatible with a relative analysis, provided that we posit a phonologically unrealized head NP with spatiotemporal or other adverbial sense—if not saa di 'the time' itself, then perhaps a more general and more abstract head NP. A further example of abstract kaa is (361), below; we translate 'in such a way that ...'.

206 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (361)

no-o haqga ga nda kuuru korfo di 2SgS-Impf follow 3SgS with skin rope Def ka didii ga a ga hal a ma yekuwa Inf roll 3SgO 3Sg on until 3SgS Subju be-strong a ma mey-ndi ga gaabi, 3SgS Subju have-Caus 3SgS strength, kaa nda n kaa ta dam a ra ferey di moo, that if 2SgS come Inf put 3Sg Loc brick Def too, nda farka di jur nda ga wala a jirfiti gu if donkey Def run with 3SgO or 3SgS lurch 3ReflSgO nda ga, a ma si koy sey... with 3SgO, 3SgS Subju Neg go scatter... 'You will follow it with the leather rope, and roll it (=rope) up on it until it (=rope) is firm (=tight) and gives it strength; in such a way that if you also come and put brick(s) on it, if the donkey runs with it (=load) or lurches around with it, it (=load) won't go and be spilled ..."

The abstract use of Rel kaa, allowing glosses like 'when ...' and 'in such a way that...' is much less typical of KCh than of other Malian Songhay languages. In KS, the Rel morpheme karj is also extremely common as a 'when ..." subordinator, and ditto for HS ga. These counterparts are often used where KCh would use fuller expressions, particularly saa di kaa ... 'when ...'. For kaa as a 'that' complementizer after verbs like 'say' and 'know', see §9.5.8.

8.4 Topic constructions Topicality may be signaled by marking the relevant constituent with an overt 'Top" morpheme bine or ta, proposing a constituent (to precede the clause proper), or both. In addition to these clear cases of topicality (§8.4.1, §8.4.3), we also consider "3F' pronouns, which are not specifically topical but have some relevant uses.

8.4.1 Preposed topical constituents, with or without Topic bine A pronoun, full NP, or adverbial (but not a PP) may be uttered in isolation to establish a discourse topic or frame for a following complete sentence. The proposed topical constituent may be prosodically separated from the following clause by a pause or by falling intonation. In the extended passage in (362), we observe several topics (and a focalized constituent).

8.4 Topic constructions (362)

a.

207

FOCUS:

[hay di kaa yer o duu a ra daa] na [thing Def Rel 1 PIS Impf get 3Sg Loc EmphJFoc yer ο kaa, yer ο jamna, jamna hinja 1 PIS Impf come, 1 PIS Impf divide, share three, TOPIC jamna foo di, yer o koy share one Def, 1P1S Impf go yer ο dey i se_^ a ra subu, 1P1S Impf buy 3P1 Dat 3Sg Loc grass, yer ο dey i se_^ a ra doobu keyna 1 PIS Impf buy 3P1 Dat 3Sg Loc bran small wala saaba keyna, haya taka-taka yo or sorghum small, thing Rdp-manner PI kaa yer duu koyra di ra keyna Rel 1P1S get town Def Loc small yer ο dey ga^ i se^ a ra, 1P1S Impf buy 3SgO 3P1 Dat 3Sg Loc TOPIC jere foo di, yer moo go ηaa ga, part one Def, 1P1S also Impf eat 3SgO, TOPIC i-dumb-o foo di kaa cindi Absol-small-Adj one Def Rel remain yer o jisi ga 1P1S Impf put-down 3SgO '[What we earn in it (=work)] [focus] is what we come and we divide into three parts. The one (=first) part,, we go buy from it, some grass for them (=donkeys); we buy from it, a little bran or a little sorghum for them, a little of the various things that we get in the town, we buy it for them from itx. Another party, we eat it, (=spend it on our own food). The bit that remainsz, we save it^'

The first part of the passage introduces as discourse referents three parts of a sum of money that has been earned. The speaker then explains in turn how each part is used, each segment beginning with an autonomous topical NP which is followed (after a prosodic break) by a sentence or short discourse span in which this referent is mentioned in the form of third person pronouns, anaphoric to the topical NP. Proposed topical constituents are syntactically external to the clauses that follow them. In this respect they differ from fronted focused constituents, which are tightly fused with the following core sentence prosodically and whose referents are normally expressed within the core sentence by traces (i.e. zero) rather than by anaphoric pronouns. As usual, we speak of "preposed" topics but of (syntactically) "fronted" focused constituents. As (362) shows, preposed topics require no explicit topicalizing morpheme. However, the Top morpheme bine is available when overt marking is required. It may be glossed in context as 'concerning X1, 'speaking of X', or 'as for X'. It is most common following short constituents (such as pronouns and short NPs), and tends to occur at abrupt topical switchpoints. (363) occurred at the beginning of an interview, immediately following the opening greetings.

208 (363)

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization [ciji baana woo bine] [night rain Dem Top] [muso foo] na war guna ga [nda t / ? [manner which?] Foe 2P1S see 3SgO [with f ] ? '(Concerning) last night's rain, how did you(Pl) see it?'

In (364), the interviewee H introduces several types of (water-)melon as discourse referents, of which the interviewer D selects the last one for further discussion. (364)

H: [yer gandoo ra] hay di kaa hin^ ka boon [1P1 this-country Loc] thing Def Rel can Inf be-good a ra, a ci karjkani, nda tombu, 3Sg Loc, 3SgS be melon,, and melon2, nda musamusa, nda kaney, woo yo kul and melon3, and melon.,, Dem PI all go hin^ ka boon yer gandoo ra Impf can Inf be-good 1P1 this-country Loc D: [kaney bine] nda boro duma ga, [melon4 Top] if person sow 3SgO, musa foo na boro^ ο hejey ga nda ? way which? Foe person Impf harvest 3Sg with? H: 'In this land of ours, what can do well is melon,, melon2, melon3, and melon4 (four cultivars); all these can do well in this our land.' D: '(Speaking of) melon4, when one has planted it, how does one harvest it?'

In the lead-in (not reproduced here) to (365), the speaker has commented that in (morally upright but arid) Timbuktu, if people's behavior is displeasing to God the result is a lack of rain during the wet season. The speaker proceeds to contrast this enviously with the situation in the monsoon-drenched southwest of Mali. (365)

[weyna-kaq-ey bine], keydiya waati haya kul go [sun-setting Top], wet-season time thing all Impf dam-di a si jendi baana_^o kar ciji ilaa jaari be-done 3SgS Impf prevent rain Impf hit night until day 'As for the (south-)west, (in) the wet season, anything (even bad behavior) is done, (but) it doesn't keep the rain from falling night and day.'

Occasionally, the bine constituent functions as subject NP with no actual preposing (so there is no resumptive pronoun). In (366), woo bine 'as for that' is immediately followed by the MAN morpheme (Impf o). (366)

[woo binej ο gar rjgi ta na tun Dem Top Impf find 3P1F Top Neg arise, 'That (=my departure) occurs while they have not (yet) gotten up.'

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209

However, bine does not occur as part of a postverbal constituent such as direct object NP, or a PP functioning semantically as a complement of the verb. Such NPs may, however, be preposed with (or without) bine as topical NPs, to be followed by the core clause with a resumptive pronoun. Topic preposing is therefore quite different from fronting rules (focalization including WH-interrogatives, and Relativization), which regularly front complete PPs and avoid resumptive pronouns. (367a) has a resumptive direct object pronoun, (367b) a resumptive pronoun in a postverbal PP. (367)

a.

b.

[ciji baana woo bine] musa [night rain Dem Top] way war guna ga ndal 2P1S see 3SgO with? 'As for this rain of last night, how you(Pl) see it?' huu woo (bine), ay doro^ house Dem (Top), ISgS sit ~ "This house, I lived in it.'

foo na which? Foe

(lit., "with which way") did a 3Sg

ra Loc

(367b) differs in this respect from (365), which does have a preposed Loc PP. But the preposed PP in (365) functions to define a general spatial setting, while the PP in (367b) functions as a kind of locational complement to the verb 'sit'. bine does not seem to occur in my Timbuktu texts as a clause-final 'however' morpheme. Because of its tendency to mark topical switchpoints, bine is a more forceful marker of topicality than ta (§8.4.3). The latter may be used either at the end of preposed topical constituents, or after ordinary sentence-internal constituents (especially subject NPs). While preposed NPs can generally be taken (syntactically and semantically) as outside the frame of the sentence or proposition, there are occasional examples where scope relationships force a reading where the preposed NP is inside the scope of a sentence-internal quantifier. This is the case with ije foo One child (=piece)' in (368), which is preposed (and corresponds to a resumptive 3Sg pronoun in the following sentence), but is under the scope of the sentence-internal negation. (368)

[ije foo] ni si hin^ ka kow ga [child one] 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf take-away 3SgO 'You(Sg) could not remove a single piece (of it)."

8.4.2 Use of "3F' pronouns The "3F" (Full third person) pronouns are 3SgF rjga and 3P1F ijgi-yo (and its variants), the latter presumably containing the nominal PI morpheme yo (§4.1.4). For more on the forms, see §3.8.8. "3F" is a special case of the usual 3Sg and 3P1 ("3") pronouns. None of them is bound by a syntactically specified antecedent. Two basic uses of "3F" pronouns should be distinguished (369).

210 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (369)

a. b.

obligatory "3F": used in "exposed" positions where 3Sg3Pl are not allowed; facultative "3F": used where both "3" and "3F" are allowed.

Simple "3" pronouns are not permitted in the "exposed" syntactic positions in (370), which therefore have obligatory "3Fl pronouns: (370)

a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

in isolation preceding Top bine (§8.4.1); preceding weak Top fa (§8.4.2); fronted focused constituent before SFoc r/ga or Foe na (§8.1); emphatic constituent with following Only', 'also', or Emph morpheme (§8.5); preceding a modifier such as demonstative woo 'this' or a numeral; left conjunct in X nda Υ conjunction (§5.11.1).

With 3SgF rjga, for example, we can get ηga (isolation form), rjga bine (Top), rjga ta (weak Top), rjga rjga (SFoc), rjga na (nonsubject Foe), rjga daa (Emph), ηga nin ('only'), rjga moo ('also'), rjga woo with demonstrative, and rjga nda gi ('...and they'). Contrast the ungrammatical alternatives with regular 3Sg a: #a bine (grammatical in another sense 'his or her heart'), #a ta, #a rjga, #a na, #a daa, #a nin,#a moo,#a woo,#a nda gi. In these exposed positions, the "3P' pronoun is highlighted by virtue of an accompanying overt modifier or attachment, or by virtue of syntactic position. By contrast, regular "3" pronouns like 3Sg a occur without modifiers in nonexposed, clitic-like positions within larger phrases or sentences (subject, object, possessor, complement of postposition, complement to the right of nda 'with, and')· Subject, possessor, and postpositional complement are proclitic, while object and right complement of nda are enclitic. "3F" can optionally be used instead of "3" pronouns in possessor function and as postpositional complement (especially with noun-like postpositions); see (54a) in §4.1.1, above. We may speak of this as the "facultative" use of "3F." It is fairly uncommon, except before V-initial noun stems where a simple 3Sg a or 3P1 / might disappear due to VV-Contraction (36), §3.7.1. Since "3F" pronouns are used in isolation and before DF morphemes, there is some association between this pronominal category and the expression of topicality (as well as that of focus). An example is (371). (371)

rjga ta alhoor di nda n kow ga 3SgF Top limestone Def if 2SgS remove 3SgO ni kata ga koyra 2SgS bring 3SgO town 'As for it, the limestone, when you've removed it and brought it to town ...'

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211

The limestone was part of the prior discourse. Proposing qga ta 'as for it' and a repetition of 'limestone' establishes it as the topic of the following clauses. The Timbuktu dialect, however, makes less extensive use than KS of preposed topical expressions based on ijga. In particular, in Timbuktu KCh, a preposed 3SgF rjga generally denotes a person or other simple discourse referent. In KS, by contrast, a preposed rjga phrase often has more abstract reference, denoting the preceding situation (or proposition), suggesting translations like 'that being the case,...'

8.4.3 Use of weak Topic marker ta The morpheme ta is quite common and versatile, so much so that it is difficult to gloss. We will label it "Top," but will often refer to it as a "weak" topic marker to contrast it with Top bine and 3SgF rjga (see the preceding two sections). This fa, which follows the topical constituent in question, is to be distinguished from two other common ta morphemes. One is a variant, used after kaa 'come', of Infinitival] ka, hence kaa ta VP (§9.G.7). The other is a Future morpheme used only after Impf o - go (§7.2.5). Any fa in the texts which does not follow kaa 'come' or Impf o - go can be safely identified as the Top morpheme Weak Top fa is common with preposed topical NPs, as in (372). In this case, if the referent in question recurs (in any syntactic function) in the following core sentence, we get a resumptive pronoun. If the preposed constituent is a spatiotemporal adverbial there is no resumptive element. The structures are the same as the preposed topics, with or without bine, described in §8.4.1. (372)

a.

b.

c.

[[woo yo ta] kul] bara ni nda gi ma hagga [[Dem PI Top] all] must 2SgS and 3P1O Subju follow 'All these (tools)x, you and theyx must be inseparable.' [kuumu ta] a si hima ka moor ni far! [hoe Top] 3SgS ImpfNeg should Inf be-far 2SgO at-all! Ά hoex, it, shouldn't be away from you ever.' moreyda ta attey kaa yer kani now Top tea become 1P1 custom '(By) now, tea has become a custom of ours.'

One speaker added Emph gaa (§8.5.7) to fa in three instances involving preposed topics. I did not observe this with other speakers. For the record, the preposed topical constituents were woo yo ta gaa 'those (=tools)', kuumu ta gaa 'a hoe', and the time adverbial in (373). (373)

saa di ta gaa, yer si filla wir time Def Top Emph, 1 PIS ImpfNeg repeat seek hay kaa_^ yer ηaa gaa thing Ref 1P1S eat Emph 'Then (=in that situation), we do not any longer seek anything that we (might) eat.'

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While fa and bine (§8.4.1) can be used with preposed topical constituents, only the much weaker ta can also be used sentence-internally, where it usually follows a NP. By far the most common sentence-internal use is with subject NPs, a variety of which (from simple pronouns to complex NPs) are illustrated in (374). (374)

a.

b.

c.

woo di ta^ o meer Dem Def Top Impf be-ugly 'That is ugly.' yer ta na guna ga 1P1S Top Neg see 3SgO 'We haven't seen him.' ammaa [[hay di kaa nafa] ta], ci alkaafun but [[thing Def Rel benefit] Top], be alkaafun 'But what really helps (with tea), is alkaafun (a spice).'

Especially with pronominal subjects, ta is so common that it may be disregarded in free translation. With third person pronouns, the ordinary 3Sg a and 3P1 / must be replaced by 3SgF rjga and 3P1F rjgi-yo when followed by ta or other DF morphemes (§8.4.2), as illustrated in (375). (375)

rjga ta_^ o hin_^ ka dam handu foo ... 3SgF Top Impf can Inf do month one ... 'It (=limestone) can spend (=last) a month ...'

While ta is common with subject NPs, the only cases in my data where ta is attached to a postverbal constituent involve pronouns, and even these cases are uncommon. Most cases of postverbal ta are really clause-final, with scope over the entire clause under certain conditions (see below); if a direct object full NP happens to be (otherwise) clause-final we will get the linear sequence (object) NP + ta, but this is not a case of object topic. ta is rare, but attested, with PPs. The available examples show ta preceding the postposition, suggesting that ta takes the NP, not the larger PP, as its complement, and that the postposition treats NP + fa just like a simple NP. See (376). (376)

a.

b.

boro foo na hin^ ka mey [a ra] person one Neg can Inf have [3Sg Loc] fahaam-ey foo, [[[[yer wane] koyroo] ta] ra], understanding one, [[[[1P1 Poss] this-town]Top] Loc], nda a na ci G if 3SgS Neg be G 'No-one has been able to acquire any understanding of him, in this town of ours, if it was not (=apart from) G [man's name].' yerkoy na cerbu ga_^ [ay ta se] God Neg show 3SgO [ISgTopDat] 'God hasn't showed him to me.' (= Ί have never encountered him.')

8.4 Topic constructions

213

fa may also occur after lexical adverbials, even when they arc not proposed as topical constituents. An apparent example is (377), though one might argue that jaari di ta functions here as a preposed topic for the following clause. (377)

mais, a-a hoy [jaari di ta], war wane But, 3SgS-Impf spend-midday [day Def Top],2Pl Poss almusakka di yo kul nga qga^ o jow ga dauy-need Def PI all 3SgF SFoc Impf take 3SgO 'But, he spends (it), the day, all your(Pl) needs, it's he [focus] who delivers it.'

The versatile ta topic marker can also be used inside a complex NP, taking scope over one of its component NPs. There are textual examples for each of the types listed in (378), where ta has scope over the element that precedes it. (378) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

element preceding ta head NP possessor NP or cpd. initial possessor NP NP kul 'all' NP (second conjunct) NP (first conjunct) pronoun (in apposition)

element following fa relative clause head noun Poss postposition wane plus head noun (unrestricted) nda 'and' plus NP (second conjunct) NP (in apposition)

As with the other postpositions mentioned above, Poss wane (if present) follows fa when the latter is attached to a possessor NP. Examples of the types in (378) are given in (379a-g), in order. (379)

a.

b.

c.

d

ammaa [wise ta] kaa sii boro kamba... but [manner Top] Rel be-not person hand... 'But a condition that is not in the hand(s) of humans ...' maa na no-o hin_^ ka bar a ga what? Foe 2SgS-Impf can" Inf say 3Sg by sanda [[[ni ta] guna di] ra] ? like [[[2SgTop] see Def] Loc] ? 'What can you(Sg) say about it (=tea), like, in your view?' gaabi di kul bisa [[[ni ta] wane] faraa di] power Def all pass [[[2Sg Top] Poss] fatigue Def] 'The power (of tea) exceeds your(Sg) fatigue.' ay kaa ta gar, [[[farm woo di] ta] kul], ISgScome Inf find, [[[clearing Dem Def] Top] all], a-a ton nda allaa feeji korey 3SgS-Impf be-full with only sheep white Ί came and found (that) this whole open space, it was full with just white sheep.'

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(379, cont.) e. yerkoy na kuboy-ndi^ ey [nda [atakurmi ta]] far! God Neg meet-Caus" ISgO [with [A Top]] at-all! 'God has never caused me to encounter Atakurmi (=dwarf).' f. [[ni ta] nda^ ey] si mey hii-hay [[2SgS Top] and ISg] ImpfNeg have vehicle-price 'You and I don't have the fare' g. jaa aljumaa ban [yer ta] [tumbutu boro] si fan since Friday day [1P1S Top] Timbuktu person ImpfNeg farm 'since on Fridays (=Muslim sabbath) we Timbuktu people don't do farm work' In (379e), one might argue that we really have a conjoined NP Ί and Atakurmi' as direct object of 'cause to meet', and that ta has scope over this conjoined NP, not just over atakurmi. There are other examples with simple conjunctions like [ay nda ni] ta Ί and you(Sg)' where ta probably does have wide scope. The "appositional" construction (379g) may really be a possessive (literally, Our Timbuktu person'), see §5.10.1. It is reasonable to allow ta to attach to possessors (379b-c), conjuncts (379e-f), and appositionals (379f), since these NPs are referentially autonomous. It is less obvious why ta may occur between the head NP and a relative clause, the two parts of a single constituent denoting one referent. But relative clauses are often delayed (extraposed), and most DF markers attach to the head NP rather than appearing at the end of the relative clause (§8.3.9). This accounts for (379a), but ta may also occur at the end of the relative clause as in (380). Note that ta in (380) has wide scope, not narrow scope over just ni 'you'. (380)

[[wannasu [[talk woo di Dem Def Ά story in

kaa ra na i kar ni] ta], Rel Loc Foe 3P1S hit 2SgO]Top], wannasu ni si dam ga talk 2SgS ImpfNeg do 3SgO which they knock you (down), that story you won't do

It is also not immediately obvious why ta precedes kul in (379d), but follows it in (381). (381)

ammaa [[boro kul] ta] na hin_^ ka key but [[person all] Top] Neg can Inf stop ka yenje a banda Inf fight 3Sg behind 'But every person was not able to stop and fight with it (=dwarf).'

Perhaps the difference is that kul in (381) is distributive, operating over the common noun boro 'person' to give the sense 'every person'. Since boro by itself does not denote a specific person in this sentence, it may be that Top ta cannot be

8.4 Topic constructions

215

directly attached to it, and must follow kul. In (379d), on the other hand, farm woo di 'this open space' already denotes a concrete location, so kul just emphasizes its totality; here ta could be meaningfully added either before or after kul. We are still not done in describing the locations where ta may occur. It is also fairly common at the end of conditional antecedent clauses, as in (382). It is normally clause-final in this usage, though in (382a) there is a further DF morpheme nin following ta. Care should be taken not to bracket clause-final ta incorrectly with the final constituent of the core of the clause. (382)

a.

b.

aywa, nda [[baana bow] ta nin] gomni_^ ο bow well, if [[rain be-much] Top only] blessing Impf be-much 'Well, only if the rain is abundant will prosperity be abundant.' nda [[albarka hirow [i raj] ta], woo Sinne hirjka if [[power enter [3P1 Loc] Top], Dem peer two wala a-hinja, a hima ka kurjgu yer or Absol-three 3SgS ought Inf sate 1P1O 'If force enters into it (=rain), two or three (rains) like this one, it should be enough for us.'

If we failed to recognize clausal scope for ta in these examples, we would have to explain how a verb (382a) or the PP argument of a motion verb (382b) could function as topics, violating generalizations we have made above. Consider now the rather complex passage in (383). (383)

mais nda [[yerkoy kar rjgu baana, a key-ndi but if [[God hit 3ReflSg rain, 3SgS stop-Caus [rjgu hari]] ta], [[no-o hin^ ka bilimbilim [3ReflSg water]] Top], [[2SgS-Impf carT Inf roll [ni bargo]] ta] [2Sg drum]] Top] [[ka koy—, ka koy ton ga ka koy goy] ta], [[Inf go—, Inf go fill 3SgO Inf go work] Top], saa di n bey kaa woo ci nafa beer time Def 2SgS know that Dem be benefit big 'But if God hits (=makes) His rain, (and) He stops His water, (and) you(Sg) can roll your (Sg) metal drum, and go—, and go fill it (=drum) and go and work; then you know that this (=rain) is a great benefit.'

At first sight, without the overlaid bracketing, this looks like a tissue of counterexamples to our generalizations about where ta can and cannot occur; ta appears to follow a direct object ggu hari 'His water', another direct object ni bargo 'your drum' (large, cylindrical metal gas drum), and goy 'work' (ambiguously a verb or noun). However, as I analyse (383), the several clauses intervening between the initial nda 'if and saa di 'then' constitute a string of parallel conditional antecedents bound by nda. All three ta morphemes, therefore, are clause-final as in (382) rather than

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having scope over the immediately preceding low-level constituent. This example shows how ta, as well as the summative saa di 'then', can function to indicate the continuation and eventually the right edge of an extended conditional antecedent complex. We will return to this issue later while discussing conditionals (§9.5.10). Finally, topical constituents with ta are occasionally appended to the sentences they relate to, probably as afterthought elaborations (384). (384)

saa di_^ a si mey torro foo, kufu time Def 3SgS ImpfNeg have trouble one, froth 'So, itx causes no trouble, the (tea's) frothx.'

di ta Def Top

8.5 Emphatics and similatives The morphemes we label Emph are semantically close to "focus" in that they emphasize the precise identity of a referent, either instead of or in addition to other referents. We reserve the term "focus" in this grammar for clause-level focalization including fronting, and the labels SFoc and Foe for morphemes associated with such operations. Emphatic morphemes (glossed "Emph") can be added locally to individual constituents without affecting the syntax of the rest of the sentence, though of course there may be wider logical interactions involving scope. An exception is the 'nobody (nothing) ..., except X* construction (§8.5.3), which does involve the sentence as a whole. We also include a brief discussion of similative expressions ('like X', 'sort of X') in §8.5.6.

8.5.1 Simple emphatics (daa, jaati(r), huneyno, yaa) The most common Emph morpheme is daa. It has the syntax typical of other DF morphemes such as Top, see §5.1. It directly follows the affected constituent and is strongly stressed. It emphasizes that the referent or spatiotemporal entity denoted is precisely correct. It is used, for example, in strong confirmations of a previous assertion (by the same or another speaker), as in the common phrase (385a), and to emphasize a precise identity or spatiotemporal location, as in (385b). In some sentences it could be loosely translated as Only', see discussion of (398) in the next section, but daa is not primarily exclusive in the fashion of true Only' morphemes. (385)

a.

b.

[woo di daa] ποπό [Dem Def Emph] it-is "That is precisely it!' [nee daa] [[[yer farru foo-foo woo] daa] r a] [here Emph] [[[1P1 clearing one-one Dem] Emph] Loc] 'right here, right in these various open spaces of ours'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives

217

Co-occurrence with the identificational quasi-verb nono as in (385a) is naturally common (§7.1.1). The constituent marked by daa may also be a syntactically focused constituent; see §8.1 for discussion and examples daa is not common clause-finally with scope over the whole clause, or over the VP. However, there do seem to be rare examples of clausal scope, as in (230) in §7.1.1, above. For daa spilling into the sense Only, merely* see end of §8.5.2. jaati - jaatir is syntactically a noun, and is usually preceded by an NP (often a pronoun). In the sequence X jaati(r), the NP (X) might be analysed syntactically as a possessor ('X's self), the initial of a loose compound ('X self), or an appositional NP ('X, himself). jaati(r)can also be used as a kind of adverbial with clausal scope ('indeed'), but even here it is nominal in form and allows Def di. We will gloss it as 'self or 'indeed' according to context. It is probably derived from Ar. daat 'self, perhaps via other African languages. The variant with final r is used chiefly in the Def form jaatir^ di, pronounced [djajtidii] (§3.6.2), but it occurs optionally in other contexts. The stem is sometimes reduplicated as jaati-jaati or jaati-jaatir(the first part has never been recorded as #/aaf/r-). Some speakers make frequent use of jaati(r), others do not. Overall, it is less common and less fully grammaticalized than possessed forms of bomo 'head', which are described later under the rubric of reflexives (§10.2.1). A few examples of jaati(r) are given in (386). (386)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

a ci bita boyro, a-a kaan {jaatir^ di] 3SgS be porridge good, 3SgS-Impf be-sweet [indeed DefJ 'It (=melon seeds) makes a good porridge, it is sweet indeed.' [[[a wane] albarka di] jaatir] ο bow [[[3Sg Poss] force DefJ self] Impf be-big 'Its (=melon's) very power (=value) is great.' moreyda i-i fari^ a ra moo, now 3PlS-Impf farm 3Sg Loc also, [ay ta jaatir^ di] cindi ka goy dooti [ISgS Top self Γ Def remain Inf work there 'Now they raise crops in it (=swamp) too; I myself continue to work there.' aywa atakurmi woo [ay ta jaati-jaatir^ di], well A Dem [ISgS Top Rdp-self" Def], ay na bey ka guna ga ISgS Neg know Inf see 3SgO 'Well, this A (=dwarf), me personally, I have never seen it (=A).' mais atakurmi ta ay na guna ga [qga jaati-jaati] but A Top ISg Neg see 3SgO [3SgF Rdp-self] 'But A (=dwarf), I didn't (actually) see it itself (=in the flesh).' [ay jaatir^ di se] na a noo ga [ISg self" Def Dat] Foe 3SgS give 3SgO 'It was to me myself [focus] that he gave it.'

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(386a) illustrates the 'indeed' adverb-like sense, emphasizing the truth of the proposition; note the (optional) Def di pointing to its continuing nominal status. The other examples involve attachment to an NP. In (386b), jaatir merely reinforces the strong word albarka 'power, force', but in (386c-e) it emphasizes the direct, unmediated, or unassisted role of the referent of the preceding NP within the eventuality. (For an alternative expression of unassisted activity, see bomo reflexives in §10.2.1.) In (386c) we can paraphrase the translation Ί myself as 'even I (not just others).' (386d) and (386e) occur in the context of an evidentially hedged second-hand account of sightings of a dj inn-like dwarf; the speaker has heard about the sightings but hasn't himself seen the dwarf (386d); the speaker has seen similar creatures but not the dwarf itself (386e). In (386d) the constituent with jaati-jaatir^ di seems to be a preposed topic constituent, and the following core sentence repeats the ISg subject pronoun. However, in (386c) the corresponding phrase with jaatir^ di itself functions as subject NP, which seems to be the more common pattern in the texts. In (386e), the jaati-jaaticonstituent is in apposition to the regular 3SgO enclitic ga, which functions as direct object. It appears that the enclitic cannot directly take a following jaati(r), so an extra 3SgF pronoun is added. (386f) shows that the constituent including jaati(r) may serve as complement of a postposition. In some examples which appear at first sight to have a jaati(r) constituent functioning as direct object, I suspect that the^'aa^'fr^is actually used adverbially with clausal scope. Thus I use the model of (386a) to interpret (387). (387)

nda n toone gi jaatir i-i nan ga mana if 2SgS provoke 3P10 self 3PlS-Impfleave 3SgO 2SgDat 'If you(Sg) indeed provoke them (=nice people), they will disregard it for you.'

Another form huneyno, used by some but not all speakers, may be related etymologically to huna 'life', but the morphology is not regular. It is attested a few times in the texts, always with a pronominal possessor, the phrase being used as an adverbial in connection with a motion verb (388a-c). (388)

a.

b.

a-a bisa n ga 3SgS-Impf pass 2Sg by a-a dam qgu koy [tjgu huneyno] 3SgS-Impf do 3ReflSg going [3ReflSg self] 'It (=dwarf) will go past you, it will go on its way alone.' boro bobo guna ga i jur [[ngi-ye huneyno] se] person many see 3SgO 3P1S run [[3ReflPl self] Dat] ; si batu ga gaa 3PIS ImpfNeg await 3SgO Emph 'Many people have seen it (=dwarf), (but) they ran away by themselves, they didn't wait for it at all.'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives c.

219

yee tiisa ay yentesu di yee fatta ISgSImpf do ISg occupation Def ISgSImpf exit [ay huneyno] yee fur i se barjgu di [ISg self] ISgSImpf abandon 3PI Dat floodplain Def Ί (will) do my work, I (will) go out by myself, I (will) leave the (inundated) field to them.'

These huneyno phrases have a particular narrative flavor. In a translation with more literary flourishes I would render them as 'it will go on its merry way,' 'they took to their heels,' and Ί (will) clear out of the field.' (Cf. KS bine). The Emph particle transcribed yaa generally has a clear long vowel except when prepausal (clause-final), where I usually heard [ja]. One clear usage of this morpheme is clause-finally, emphasizing the truth of the proposition. It is used, for example, in echoic confirmations of another speaker's assertion or of one's own suspicions (389). (389)

a.

b.

D: nafa beer na_^ i-i mey use great Foe 3PlS-Impf have 'It's a great value they (=swamps) have.' H: i goo yaa! 3PlSbe Emph 'They do indeed!' ay bar kala musoo yaa! ISgS say unless thus Emph Ί said (to myself), it must be so!'

For i goo in H's truncated reply in (389a), see §8.2.1. However, yaa is also used sentence-internally. It is considerably less common than daa overall, and it is somewhat difficult to tease out a clear gloss or rule of use from the available examples. For example, it can occur between a pronoun (or any NP) and a postposition, as in (390a-b). (390)

a.

b.

yer o koy dey ga [[qgi-ye yaa] ga] 1P1S Impf go buy 3SgO [[3P1F Emph] by] 'We (will) go buy it from them.' boro si hin^ a ra hin-ey, person ImpfNeg can 3Sg Loc power, a ci [[[yerkoy yaa] wane] mise] 3SgS be [[[God Emph] Poss] manner] kaa [[ijga kamba] ra] na^ a goo that [[3SgF hand] Loc] Foe 3SgS be Ά human has no control over it (=rain). It's God's way that it's in His hands [focus] that it (=rain) is.'

In both examples, the constituent with yaa is mildly emphatic. In (390a), 'them' denotes an ethnic group (Bellas) that had been mentioned a few sentences earlier, so the nuance is something like 'we go buy it from those same (people).'

220 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization 8.5.2 Only' (nin, tan, allaa, koon, daa, kus!) In the exclusive sense of only, the English expression only X has a logical representation of the general shape 'X but not also Υ, Ζ,...' where the members of the set {Χ, Υ, Z, ...} are of the same logical type and where at least some of these are contextually plausible. The quantitative ("ceiling") sense of only X, where X denotes a quantity ('five dollars'), is 'X but not more than X'. The logical expansions indicate that Only' in these senses has affinities to "focus" ('X instead of Υ, Ζ, ...') and "emphatic" ('precisely X'). We will use this logical analysis of English only as our starting point, making adjustments where needed for KCh. Most of the examples are exclusive, while quantitative Only' is treated at the end of the section. In this section we discuss Only' expressions that are attachable to already wellformed phrases and clauses. In §8.5.4 we deal with a more elaborate syntactic construction with similar meaning. For /bo One' (hence 'singly, alone') see §4.5.1 and §5.4.1. The primary morphemes are those in (391). (391)

a.

morpheme nin(~rii) tan allaa koon kus!

gloss position Only' postposed Only' postposed Only' preposed 'bareness; lone' follows possessor 'merely' postposed Intens

source native
The basic morpheme in Timbuktu KCh is the particle nin. Some upriver dialects, under stronger Fulfulde influence, use tan in substantially the same constructions. nin Only' is very common in Timbuktu; a variant rii occurs in upriver dialects. There is a homonym nin 'be ripe, be ready to eat' which we disregard here. Like some other discourse-functional (DF) particles (§5.A), nin attaches to the end of a phrase (NP, adverbial, VP, clause), over which it has scope. In a PP, it follows the NP and is followed in turn by the postposition. It may also be clause-final with scope over the VP or clause. In (392) we see some cases, readily translated with Only', 'just', 'simply', or 'merely', attached to a variety of constituent or clause types. The sense of Only' here is exclusive rather than quantitative. (392)

a.

woo ci [[[boro di yo] wane] tonton] nin Dem be [[[person Def PI] Poss] addition] only "That (rumor) is merely the people's exaggeration.' b. hay a kaa boro yo na jow-kate wannasu kuna, thing Rel person PI Neg take-Centripconversation Loc, boro si hin_^ ka jow ga [nda [ni bomo]] nin person ImpfNeg can Inf take 3SgO [with [2Sghead]] only 'Whatever (story) people (=others) have not begun to bring up in a conversation, one (=you) cannot begin it just by yourself.'

8.5 Emphatics and s imitatives

221

c.

D: ... ay bey kaa hew sii^ a ra ... ISgS know that wind not-be 3Sg Loc Ί realized that there was no wind in it (=rainstorm).' H: [[[a bomo lawal di] nin] ra] hew keyna goo [[[3Sg head first Def] only] Loc] wind small be Only in its (=rain's) beginning was there a little wind.' d. ay na bey ka guna ga, yee mom nin ISgS Neg have Inf see 3SgO, ISgSImpf hear only i-i wannasu [nda [[a wane] wannasu]] 3PlS-Impf speak [with [[3Sg Poss] story]] Ί have never seen it (=dwarf), I only hear them (=people) speak about it.' e. yer ο taasi nin moreyda farka di ma rjaa, 1P1S Impfseek only now donkey Def Subju eat, hai a ma yekuwa until 3SgS Subju get-strong 'We now seek only that the donkey may eat, so that it may get healthy.' f. a si kaa haya kaa, a-a jiti-ndi ni, 3SgS ImpfNeg become thing Rel, 3SgS-Impf startled-Caus 2SgO, [maa se] a-a kaa [n ga] nin [what? Dat] 3SgS-Impf come [2Sg on] only 'It (dwarf) doesn't become something, that, it, frightens you, because it simply comes to you.' g. mere ma korosi addama-jje woo kaa si mey but 2SgSSubju notice human Dem Rel ImpfNeghave sport foo kaa a-a dam, kala a-a goro nin sport one Rel 3SgS-Impf do, except 3SgS-Impf sit only 'But you should notice that person who has no sport that he does, except (that) he simply sits.' h. [[ni nda alhoor-koy di] kul] o kaa a-foo, [[2Sg and limestone-owner Def] all] Impf become Absol-one, a wan di^ o senre nin, 3Sg Poss Def Impf be-straight only, ni wan di si serre 2Sg Poss Def ImpfNeg be-straight 'You (=one who has cheap limestone rubble mixed with mud) and one who has limestone (blocks) become one (=are equal), it's just that his (house) is straight, (while) yours isn't straight.' i. [ay nin se] na a noo ga [ISg only Dat] Foe 3SgS give 3SgO Only to me [focus] did she give it.' The semantic scope appears to be over the following: the NP 'the people's exaggeration' (392a), the instrumental phrase 'by yourself (392b), the NP complement of the PP or perhaps (in spite of the syntax) the PP as a whole (392c,i),

222 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization the verb 'hear' excluding its clausal complement (392d), the matrix verb 'seek' excluding its subjunctive complement (392e), the VP 'it comes to you' (392f), 'sits' either as verb or as one-word VP (392g). In (392h), one could argue that Only' has a higher-order pragmatic scope; in context we may expand the relevant portion as 'the only consequence of your using a mixture of cheap odd-shaped limestone pieces and mud-and-gravel cement, and of someone else's using expensive rectangular limestone blocks, is that his house will have perfectly flat walls, while yours will be irregular.' In these examples, nin translates easily as Only' (or a near-synonym like 'merely', 'simply', 'just'). In some other textual examples, like (393), such a translation would be forced. (393)

nda boro fatta if person exit ma dam 2SgSSubju do 'If one (=you) goes itx properly.'

[haya se] nin, [thing Dat] only, ga [nda a fondo di] 3SgO [with 3Sg path Def] out (to the fields) for something x , you should do

In (393) and in a few other textual examples nin seems to mark the right edge of a conditional antecedent (or, more generally, any sentence giving background information). This right-edge marking is, however, more typically carried out by kul (§9.5.10). Consider now (394). (394)

saa di kaa a din rjgu moo time Def Rel 3SgS grab LogoSgO also a cendu ngu moo ngu dam haya kul gaa, 3SgSpull LogoSgO also LogoSgS do thing all indeed, [[[huna nin] wala bun] ga] na rjgu din, [[[life only] or death] on] Foe LogoSgS grab, maa qgu bun wala qgu huna either LogoSgS die or LogoSgS live '(Hey said:) When it (=dwarf)x seized him y (and) it, pulled him y , hey did everything, it was [(for) life or death] [focus] that hey grabbed, either hey died or hey lived.'

The victim was fighting off the malicious dwarfs attack for dear life. Here nin is attached to the first disjunct 'life' in '(for) life or death'. In English, we would not say [only life] or death, with only specifically bracketed with one of the disjuncts, at least when the disjuncts are mutually exclusive. The fact that nin can be used in KCh suggests that the logical expansion here is 'X instead of Y', rather than 'X and not also Y' as in most earlier examples. A somewhat similar example is (395), where the exclusive sense 'X (=God) instead of Υ, Ζ,...' is made clearer by the use of the focus construction.

8.5 Emphatics and similatives (395)

223

yee horjgu [yerkoy nin] rjga dam jejow ISgSImpf believe [God only] SFoc put barrier [yer nda gi] cere game [1P1S and 3P1O] friend between Ί think that it is God (alone) who put a barrier between us and them (dwarves).'

Only God' would be an infelicitous translation here, but if we were to add a capacitative verb 'can' we could make nin and English only converge (Only God can put ...'). Compare (396). mn almisilmi di yo nin qg&_ ° _ ^a hirow jiggar-ey Muslim Def PI only SFoc Impf can Inf enter mosque Only Muslims may enter a mosque.'

(396)

The less common particle allaa can be glossed Only' (exclusive) but also has other contextual functions ('nothing but* or 'just like'), and is discussed in §8.5.6. koon can be glossed 'be bare' (verb), 'bare, naked' (adjective), or 'bareness' (as noun). It occurs most commonly in "small clauses" functioning as adverbial adjuncts to already complete VPs, either in the literal sense 'bare' (397a) or in the more abstract sense 'alone, by oneself (397b-c). That ijgu-ye banda koon in (397a) is not an independent clause is shown by the fact that it is clearly under the scope of the negation in the preceding VP; the meaning is of the type 'they did not come back empty-backed' rather than 'they did not come back, (and) they were empty-backed.' Moreover, the use of 3ReflPl ijgu-ye rather than simple 3P1 i in the koon phrase would be unexplained if this phrase were an independent clause. (397)

a.

b.

c.

/ na yee-kate [ijgu-ye banda koon] 3 PI S Neg return-Centrip [3ReflPl back bare] 'They (donkeys) haven't come back with their backs bare (= without loads).' no-o dumbu ga [woo di hinne koon] 2SgS-Impf cut 3SgO [Dem Def size bare] 'You cut it (wood) to no more than that length.' no-o hin ka kulba [gga koon di] 2SgS-Impf can Inf knead [3SgF bare DefJ 'You can knead it by itself (without adding millet).'

The minimal "small clause" generally consists of just a NP (often a pronoun) plus koon, and it is not immediately obvious whether this is a subject-verb, nounadjective, or possessor-noun sequence. However, in a case like qga koon di (397c), Def di excludes the subject-verb reading, and the use of 3SgF qga instead of simple 3Sg a seems to argue against the possessor-noun reading, leaving noun-adjective (here: pronoun-adjective) as the preferred analysis; see §8.4.2 on the use of "3F" rather than simple third person pronouns with following modifiers. We therefore tentatively extrapolate from (397c) and suggest the same noun-adjective analysis for e.g. (397a-b).

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8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

For the reflexive pronoun in (397a), see discussion of the same sentence as (649a) in §10.2.4. A further example of koon is (494b) in §9.5.1. The basic sense of the Emph particle daa (preceding section) is 'precisely', but a gloss Only' is appropriate in some contexts where implicature is at work, daa can be quantitative, as in (398), as well as exclusive. (398)

joijgu hirjka daa qga goo ay ga hundred two Emph SFoc be ISg on 'Exactly (=a mere) 200 (riyals) is what I have on me.'

Another Only' expression that is primarily quantitative, rather than exclusive, is an Intensifier (interjection) kus!, which normally follows the relevant quantified expression (399). (399)

joqgu kus! hundred only! ΊΟΟ, period!'

8.5.3 'Unless' (nda^ a na c/)' and 'except' (bara, kala) The expression nda^ a na ci... is formally a conditional antecedent clause meaning 'if 3Sg is not ...' (logically equivalent to 'unless 3Sg is ...'), with following predicate nominal (400). It is very common and is sometimes reduced phonetically to [ndartfi], [ndantji], [nantji], or the like. (400)

nda a na if SSgSNeg a si 3SgS ImpfNeg 'If it isn't steel, limestone.'

ci alhindi kul be steel all mey [alhoor di se] hin-ey have [limestone Def Dat] power. it will have no power over (=ability to cut)

nda_^a na ci... can also take a following subjunctive clause as its complement, in which case we may gloss it as 'unless ...' (i.e., as 'if it is not the case that ...'). The phrase a na ci... without conditional nda is often used as a higher-level negation (§9.3.2), and nda^ a na ci ... builds on this, but shifts the MAN marking to subjunctive (cf. §10.6.5). Like simple a na ci... , the conditional version nda^ a na ci... often takes a focalized clause as its complement, allowing the negation to include the focused constituent in its scope, as in (401), cf. also (285a) in §8.1.2, above. (401)

nda a na ci [aqaara qga ma hasara ga] if 3SgS N e g b e [pest SFoc Subju ruin 3SgO] 'unless it's a pest that may ruin it (=crop)'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives

225

The gloss Otherwise' without a complement is expressed by nda^ a na ci ga 'if itx is not ity' with 3SgO pronoun ga, anaphoric to a preceding proposition, as in (402). This high-frequency phrase, like nda^ a na ci ... itself, has various contracted pronunciations. (402)

fahaam-ey, woo daa ijga ci understanding, Dem Emph SFoc be aadama-jje wane kallasi di kaa hin ka human Poss protection Def Rel can Inf

[ganji-ije

di

[forest-child nda^ a

Def PI] with friend between na ci ga, ganji-ije

if

3SgS Neg

yo] nda

kallasi ga, protect 3SgO,

cere game,

be 3SgO,

foo ...,

wala

forest-child one ..., or

a wane cee foo di_^ o hin ka derey-ndi aadama-jje 3SgPoss foot one Def Impfcan Inf lose-Caus human 'Intelligence, precisely this [focus] is the defence of a human, which can protect him (her), among wild animals; otherwise, a wild animal ... , or (even) its single paw could destroy a human.' Of the two 'except' particles in KCh, bara is much more common than kala in Timbuktu (§5.9.9). Both particles also have other functions (or homophones); for bara see §7.1.3 (existential quasi- verb), §9.5.9 (indicative 'since' complementizer), and §9.6.2 (impersonal obligational with subjunctive); for kala see §9.5.8 (rare indicative 'that' complementizer). In the 'except X' construction that concerns us here, bara or kala precedes the attached constituent. Often they identify a positive exception to a preceding negative proposition; see the following section. However, bara or kala can also identify an exception to a positive proposition, as in (403). (403)

i-kul kaa [bara A] AbsolPl-all come [except A] 'They all came, except A (name).'

A third person pronominal linked with bara or kala takes "3F' form: bara qga 'except her'. For bilaa 'without' see §5.9.9 (simple NP complements) and §9.6.4 (subjunctive clausal complements).

8.5.4 'Nobody (nothing) except X' = Only X' We noted in §8.5.2 that nin Only' approximates English only, with a logical representation for only X of the type 'X but not also Y, Z, ..." where Υ and Ζ are implied alternatives to X. In the special case where X is the only entity, or the only member of a substantial class of entities, of whom a predication is made, there is an alternative two-part construction that may be used. It is more complex syntactically

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8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

but also more explicit logically and more forceful. The general forms can be schematized as (404), where (404a) is the predominant type. (404)

a. b.

'Nobody (Nothing, No dog, etc.) came here, except X.' 'If it wasn't X, nobody (nothing, no dog, etc.) came here.'

Unlike English (e.g. [Nobody except X] came here), in KCh we typically get a complete negative sentence, followed by the truncated clause which introduces the exception, here 'except X' representing 'except that X came here'. Because of this, the exception phrase has considerable rhetorical force, and is put to good use by storytellers. The 'except' morphemes in type (404a) are bara and kala depending on dialect (see end of preceding section). The examples generally involve subject NPs, but the construction works in principle for NPs in any syntactic position held constant over the two clauses. The negated correlative expression in the first clause is generally an NP (or adverbial); it may be a bare common noun, or it may take a quantifier (/bo One' orkul 'all') in the sense '(not) any'. In (405) we give examples of type (404a) involving subject NPs (405a) and direct object NPs (405b-c) (405)

a.

b.

c.

[haya foo] na fey yer bara tuuri di [thing one] Neg separate 1P1O except tree Def kaa goo_^ [[i ganda di] ra] Rel be'" [[3P1 land DefJ Loc] 'Nothing distinguishes us (northerners, from the southerners), except the tree(s) which are present in their land.' yer si mey [ceefe se] safari bara alkaafun daa 1P1S ImpfNeg have [fever Dat] cure except alkaafun Emph 'We don't have a remedy for fever, except that very alkaafun (spice).' attey si mey [haya kul] tea ImpfNeg have [thing all] kaa ga na a doo kala faraa Rel by Foe 3SgS be-based except fatigue Tea has nothing on which it is based, except fatigue.'

The examples in (405) show clear separation between the negative clause and the following exception phrase. This is always found with subject NPs, since the subject NP of the negative clause is always separated from the 'except' phrase by other material. However, optionally in the case of clause-final direct objects, and even more commonly with other clause-final constituents (spatiotemporal adverbials, instrumental phrases), the correlative constituent in the negative clause is dispensed with and we get what looks like a single clause. Examples in (406). (406)

a.

wirci woo si din bara farka kul kaa yekuwa disease Dem ImpfNeg seize except donkey all Rel be-solid That disease doesn't afflict (any donkey), except any donkey that is healthy.'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives b.

c.

d.

e.

227

boro go key [i maasu] kaa si hima person Impf stand [3P1 amid] Rel ImpfNeg resemble bara allaa Man except just-like Fula 'Someone was standing among them who resembled none but a Fula.' boro di yo kaa guna ga kul yer koyroo ra person Def PI Rel see 3SgO all 1P1 this-townLoc ι na guna ga bara [ftji kuna] 3P1S Negsee 3SgO except [night Loc] 'The people who have seen it, in our town, they didn't see it except at night.' a si mey safari, kala nda yerkoy daa 3SgS ImpfNeg have remedy, except with God Emph 'It (=malaria) has no cure, except by (the intervention of) God.' wirti bobo yo goo dooti kaa i si safari gi disease many PI be there Rel 3P1S ImpfNeg treat 3P1 nda bara alkaafun with except alkaafun 'There are many ailments that they can't cure except with alkaafun (spice).'

(406a-b) involve direct object NPs, (406c) a spatiotemporal adverbial, and (406d-e) instrumental NPs. When the constituent in question is a direct object, the fuller twopart construction (405b-c) appears to be grammatically preferable to the single-clause pattern (406a-b). In (406a), for example, the quantifier kul 'all' (= 'any') shows up on the NP in the 'except' phrase, though it would make more sense on the (omitted) correlative NP in the initial negative clause ("That disease doesn't afflict any donkey, except a donkey that is healthy'). I think, then, that we can regard the single-clause type (406a-b) as a truncated version of the fuller construction. The two instrumental examples (406d-e) show different word orders, kala 'except' preceding nda in (406d), while bara 'except' follows nda in (406e). Follow-up elicitation with Timbuktu informants showed that nda bara X and bara nda X are interchangeable. There are some textual examples where bara or kala takes scope over a following clause denoting an eventuality that serves as an exception to that expressed by the preceding negative clause. Here we gloss bara or kala freely as 'except that ...'. This is arguably the case in (407a-c). (407)

a.

bana sii_^ a ra, haya foo sii^ a ra bara wages be-not 3Sg Loc, thing one be-not 3Sg Loc except a-a hina war se hay kaa war qaa, a ben 3SgS-Impfcook 2P1 Dat thing Rel 2P1S eat, 3SgS end 'There's no pay for it (=job), there's nothing for it, except that he (=boss) will cook for you(Pl) something for you to eat, that's all.'

228 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (407, cont.) b. mere ma korosi addama-jje woo kaa si mey but 2SgSSubju notice human Dem Rel ImpfNeg have sport foo kaa a-a dam, ka!a a-a goro nin sport one Rel 3SgS-Impf do, except 3SgS-Impf sit only 'But you should notice that person who has no sport that he does, except (that) he simply sits.' c. a si dam hay a foo bara a-a jirbi 3SgS ImpfNeg do thing one except 3SgS-Impf sleep 'She does nothing except she sleeps.' See also (247b) in §7.1.5, above, bara can also be used as a clause-initial 'because ..." particle (§9.5.9), and in examples like (407a) one could possibly construe bara in this way. kala, for its part, is sometimes used as a 'that' complementizer (§9.5.8). Close attention to context is required in analysing textual occurrences of bara and kala. In (407b-c), English would normally omit the repeated subject NP and the tense inflection in the exception clause, which would therefore be syntactically a VP ('She does nothing except sleep'). In KCh, complete clauses including subject NPs are required. Although the construction with bara or kala is quite productive, we also find textual examples with nda^ a na ci... 'if it (he, she) is not ...' expressing exceptions to negative clauses. In this case, the exception clause may precede (408a) or follow (408b) the main negative clause. (408)

a.

nda_^ a na ci sanda alwakati addaruura-nte yo if 3SgS Neg be like time dangerous-Partpl PI ciji maasu dira-koy woo yo wala haya tanaa, night middle walk-Agent Dem PI or thing other, boro foo si hin*«* ka har mana moo, kaa... person one ImpfNeg can Inf say 2SgDat also, that ... 'If it is not, like, those who walk around at dangerous times late at night, or something else (like that), no-one can (truthfully) tell you that ...' b. yer na hin^ ka guna boro kul kaa hin_^ ka noo yer 1P1S Neg can Inf see person all Rel can Inf give 1P1O a wane fahaam-ey di nda^ a na ci G, 3Sg Poss understanding Def if ~ 3 S g S N e g b e G, kaa kar ga Rel hit 3SgO 'We have not been able to find anyone who can give us information about it (=dwarf), if it is not (=except for) G (=man's name), who struck it.'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives

229

8.5.5 'Also'(moo) moo 'also, too' is very common. We focus here on its use in positive clauses; for its interaction with negation see §9.3.5. We disregard its homonyms meaning 'eye' and 'rice'. moo is a typical DF morpheme which follows the constituent over which it has primary scope. This constituent may be an NP (full NP or pronoun) or adverbial. In the case of a PP, moo attaches to the NP and therefore precedes the postposition, as in (409). (409)

nda aSsaraa kaa hay kaa if Islamic-law come thing Rel [[a-foo kul] se] i-i [[Absol-one all] Dat] 3PlS-Impf 'If (Islamic) law comes, whatever is they will do it for you(Sg) too.'

a-a dam-di 3SgS-Impf do-Mediop dam ga [[ni moo] se] do 3SgO [[2Sg also]Dat] done for each one (=of them),

Logically, an assertion like 'they do it for [you too]' makes no sense except by juxtaposition to a parallel assertion of the general form 'they do it for X.' The narrow scope of 'too' in '[you too]' is allowed because the residual portion of the parallel assertion ('they do it for ') is more or less held constant. As (409) suggests, moo can attach to NPs in any syntactic position. However, moo can also be clause-final with scope over the entire eventuality, as in (410). (410)

barjgu bee::?, hari-ham yaa goo^ a ra, swamp bi:::g, water-meat Emph be 3Sg Loc, [i-i fari^ a ra] moo [3PlS-Impf farm 3Sg Loc] also '... a big floodplain (seasonally inundated land). There are fish in it. They farm in it too.'

Here moo is not locally attached to the PP a ra, which in fact is precisely the one constituent shared by 'there are fish in it* and 'they farm in it.' As (409), shows, when moo is connected to a specific PP, it attaches to the NP preceding the postposition, whereas in (410) moo follows the entire PP. Therefore, in (410) moo has clausal scope. There are a small number of textual instances where moo is positioned after a verb before postverbal constituents, but none where moo can really be described as having narrow scope over the verb. In (345) in §8.3.7, above, positioning of moo after a transitive verb may be due to the heaviness of the following direct object NP (which includes a long relative clause). Examples like (410) are common, but there are also quite a few textual examples where moo is physically attached to the subject NP (or a preposed topical NP) but where the context suggests clausal scope. In other words, moo can attach to the subject or preposed topical NP for convenience, allowing the speaker to specify at the

230

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

beginning of the current sentence its additive relationship to the preceding discourse. This seems to be typical when moo functions at the pragmatic level (Ί tell you moreover that...'), where the absence of overtly realized pragmatic material forces the speaker to attach moo (which cannot stand alone) to a surrogate constituent. Consider (411). (411)

... bara / ma jirfiti a bomo^woo ka gaa ga, ... must 3P1S Subju snatch 3Sg head ~ Dem Inf eat 3SgO, tuuri sii kul kaa^ i gar dooti bara^ i ma hasara, tree kind all RefSPlSfind there musT 3PIS Subju ruin, aywa tarkunda di ye moo, kokoy-terey si yadda well elephant Def PI also, authority ImpfNeg consent ooro ma wii gi person Subju kill 3P1O '... they (=elephants) will certainly snatch its (=tree's) top and eat it; every kind of tree that they (=elephants) find there they will certainly ruin; well, the elephants, by the way, the government won't allow anyone to kill them.'

Here the moo basically indicates that a new point is being made; one could gloss it 'moreover' or 'by the way', which brings out the pragmatic nuance. In this passage, the elephants are already the main discourse referent, and there are no parallel propositions of the form 'the government won't allow anyone to kill X' (X = alligators, gazelles, etc.) that would justify a narrow-scope gloss '[the elephants too]'. It follows that when moo is attached to a subject or preposed topical NP, the construction is semantically ambiguous (narrow scope over this NP, or pragmatic scope over the entire sentence). An example of a subject NP with narrow-scope moo is (412). (412)

nda baana kar, ηga moo go hay a-a nin if rain strike, 3SgF too Impf bear 3SgS-Impf ripen 'When it rains, it (=millet in field) too will bear fruit, it will ripen.'

The speaker uses 'too' here to indicate the parallel behavior of millet grown in a dry field with millet grown in another type of terrain described earlier. We can already see that moo is used more broadly than English too. Another situation where the two languages diverge is in cases where two referents or eventualities are contrasted (rather than combined additively). In KCh, moo is often attached to the second of two paired alternatives, either two sharply contrasted referents (413a) or two mutually exclusive antedecents in parallel conditionals (413b). Here the best gloss is On the other hand' or 'by contrast'. In some passages, moo can be glossed freely as 'even' in an escalating progression, as in (414).

8.5 Emphatics and similatives (413)

a.

b.

(414)

231

taajir o koy dey alhoor boyro di, merchant Impf go buy limestone good Def, a-a tilsa ga nda, hay kaa qgu dam 3SgS-Impf make 3SgO with, thing Rel 3ReflSgS make nda salarjga, talka moo go koy dey with toilet, pauper also Impf go buy alhoor bakabaka woo daa... limestone debris Dem Emph ... Ά rich man will go buy nice limestone (blocks), he will make it into a thing which he will make into an outhouse; a poor man, on the other hand, will go buy that limestone debris (odd-shaped chunks) ...' [nda a dey] a boon [nda a na dey] [if 3SgS be-sold] 3SgS be-good [if 3SgS Neg be-sold] moo no-o gurum ga... also 2SgS pile 3SgO ... 'If it (=limestone) sells, fine; if on the other hand it doesn't sell, you pile it up ...' no-o kaa ta gar alhoor no-o fatta-ndi ga 2SgS-Impf come Inf find limestone 2SgS-Impf exit-Caus 3SgO no-o koy no-o taasi ga [no-o gunaga] 2SgS-Impfgo 2SgS-Impf seek 3SgO [2SgS-Impfsee 3SgO] moo hal no-o hoηgu alhoor nono, also until 2SgS-Impf believe limestone it-is, a-a kaa yaada 3SgS-Impf become worthless 'You go and find limestone, you take it out (=quarry it), you go and you seek it and you even look at it until you believe it is limestone, but it turns out worthless.'

The gloss 'you even look at it' is misleading syntactically, since moo has scope over the entire clause, not just over the verb. The sense of 'even' applicable to (414) is additive; the miner not only locates the limestone but also also scrutinizes it visually, but is still fooled by its appearance and is disappointed when it then crumbles. A more common expression glossable as 'even' is wala (§8.5.9, end of §9.5.1).

8.5.6 Similative 'like X' (sanda, allaa, taka, Sinne) We discuss here the two basic Similative particles, sanda and allaa, and combinations involving compound finals taka, wise, and Sinne. sanda is a particle that can sometimes be glossed 'like', preceding the constituent in question. Examples in (415).

232 (415)

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization a.

b.

a ci sanda attaam 3SgS be like grain 'It (=tea) is like grain.' a-a hem sanda guuru 3SgS-Impf weep like metal 'It (=limestone) makes a scraping noise like metal.'

Here the contexts are quite compatible with the literal sense 'like, similar to*. However, in many other examples sanda functions as a hedging or qualifying device operating at the pragmatic level, and can be glossed as 'sort of, 'so to speak', or 'shall we say'. In this usage it often precedes the whole sentence, focusing on no constituent in particular, though it may also occur at an internal phrase boundary. Note that English like can also be used in this way in colloquial speech, sanda can also precede explanatory or clarificatory statements, and in this context it can be glossed 'for example' or 'in other words'. Perhaps in all of these pragmatic cases it is also being used as a filler while the speaker formulates an expression thoughtfully. Some examples are in (416). (416)

a.

b.

c.

ycr^ ta bey kaa sanda [mobil di neere di], 1P1S Top know that l i k e [vehicle Def selling Def], a na ci haya kaa guma [yer se] 3SgS Neg be thing Rel benefit [1P1 Dat] 'We know that, like, selling (limestone) to truck drivers, it isn't something that we get much out of.' a-a kaan Uaat^ di] 3SgS-Impf be-sweet [self"" DefJ sanda no-o maata^ a ra kaan-ey foo... like 2SgS-Impf feel 3Sg Loc sweetness one ... 'It is quite sweet, that is to say, you feel in it a sweetness ..." saa di yer o hagga i banda nin, time Def 1P1S Impf follow 3P1 behind only, sanda höö jaman woo cinne, like nowadays season Dem peer, yer o harjga gi nin 1P1S Impf follow 3P1O only 'Then, we just follow after them (=donkeys); for example, at this time of year (=July), we just follow them.'

The particle allaa (of dialectal Arabic origin) precedes rather than follows the constituent to which it attaches, which is an indefinite NP in descriptive function in all of the textual examples. It occurs in contexts of the general type '(X) is (was) strictly (=nothing but) Y' or '(X) is (was) just like Y,' where X is a previously established discourse referent and Y is a descriptive NP (often semantically colorful). The sense 'just like' seems more common; some examples are in (417).

8.5 Emphatics and similatives (417)

233

a.

a na δί a-a goro ka hantum wala woo di taka 3SgSNeg be 3SgS-Impf sit Inf write or Dem Def manner a77aa gaabi-goy maa a-a fan wala a-a kur just power-work either 3SgS-Impf farm or 3SgS-Impf herd 'It isn't (as though) he sits and writes or something like that, (he does) strictly hard labor; either he toils in the fields, or he herds (animals)...' b. no-o kottu-kottu ga no-o dam ga 2SgS-Impf Rdp-rip 3SgO 2SgS-Impfmake 3SgO nda i-kuku allaa korfo with Absol-long just rope 'You(Sg) will rip it (=cowhide) up, you will make it into strips, just like rope.' c. woo di a-a din gi [i jese di ye ra] Dem Def 3SgS-Impf grab 3P1O [3P1 shoulder Def PI Loc] a ci wirci taka foo, kaa a-a kaa 3SgS be disease type one, Rel 3SgS-Impf become

allaa hay

kaa

sanda [nooni taka]

ποπό

just thing Rel like [worm type] it-is 'That one (=disease) afflicts them (=donkeys) in their shoulders; it is a kind of disease, which becomes just like something which is, let's say, a kind of worm.' So neither sanda nor allaa means simply 'like, similar to'. Further examples of ai/aaare (252f,i) in §7.2.2 and (670) in §10.3.1. The two nouns taka 'manner, (essential) type' and cinne ~ cilde - cille 'peer, equal' are common as compound finals (or possessed nouns) in expressions that can be translated freely as 'like X', where X is the compound initial (or possessor). The compound type X taka means, more precisely, 'something of the same type as X, something like X', while X cinne means 'a peer or equal of X, the likes of X'. These finals often co-occur with sanda or a7/aa preceding the compound, as in (416c) with sanda ... cinne and as in (417c) with taka ... allaa... sanda ... taka. Further examples in (418). (418)

a.

b.

c.

ay hoqgu a go ci sanda allaa Seytaan taka ISgS believe 3SgS Impf be like just devil type Ί think it (=dwarf) is, so to speak, like a kind of devil.' a-a cindi a-a tun-^ndi i ra kaaji taka 3SgS-Impfcontinue 3SgS-Impf rise^Caus 3P1 Loc rash kind 'It (=disease) keeps raising a kind of rash on them (=donkeys).' yer gey-nda [a oinne] 1P1S endure-with [3Sg peer] 'We've gone a long time without the likes of it (=recent rainstorm).'

cinne and its variants (cille and less often cilde) are quite common in negative contexts, including implied negative contexts as in (418c).

234

<S Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

8.5.7 dee, mee, gaa dee is a particle that can be used a) clause-finally as an emphatic with no necessary relationship to any following material, or b) linking two clauses (often pronounced at the onset of the second clause). In the clause-final use, dee emphasizes the proposition as a whole and may have an adversaria] pragmatic nuance (cf. English unstressed now with warning tone in Don't stay out late now!). It can be used to given a tone of finality to an assertion that contradicts or challenges a position taken by the addressee, or to an assertion likely to be disbelieved. It can also give an admonishing tone to an imperative. It is common in rhetorically charged contexts such as haggling in the marketplace (419). (419)

πο-o koy yoobu, i-i neere ga doodi, 2SgS-Impf go market, 3PlS-Impf see 3SgO there, yoobu moo i-i bar mana joqgu hinja dee, market also 3PlS-Impfsay 2SgDat hundred three indeed, wala joqgu taaci dee, yoobu boro^ o terme nin or hundred four indeed, market person Impf haggle only hal nan^ kaa yerkoy noo ni until place Rel God give 2SgO hay di kaa hajje thing Def Rel do-whatchamacallit 'You(Sg) go to market; they sell it (waterbags) there; (at) the market moreover they (=sellers) will tell you 'definitely 300 (riyals)', or 'definitely 400'; a market person (=seller) just haggles (over prices) until the point where God has given you(Sg) the thing that whatchamacallits (=is needed).'

Here one has to picture the vendors trying to insist on their prices in the face of much lower counteroffers by their customers. As a clause-linker, dee seems to indicate that the eventuality E2 denoted by the second clause follows and in some sense is the logical or causal outgrowth as well as temporal successor of the eventuality E, denoted by the preceding clause. E2 is a climactic event and may be dramatic. In most cases, dee occurs between antecedent and consequent clauses in a conditional construction with nda 'if. We will gloss dee here as '(only) then', though it can often be omitted in free translations. In this usage it functions rather likejinaa 'first; then', cf. (457a) in §9.3.1. Examples in (420). (420)

a.

b.

[maa se] nda^ i kar ga dee i-i dam ga [what? Dat] if ~ 3P1S hit 3SgO then 3PlS-Impf put 3SgO [hari ra] ? [water Loc]? 'Why, when they've struck it (=metal), do they then put it in water?' nda baali di—, a mon, dee_^ a-a hasara if flesh Def, 3SgS be-removed, then 3SgS-Impf be-ruined 'If the fleshx—, (if) itx is erased (=gets rotten), then it/s ruined.'

8.5 Emphatics and similatives c.

d.

e.

235

nda a faati ka soroku guusu di ra dee, if 3SgS do-already Inf fall pit Def Loc then, gga ta a See baa a kamba baa SSgFTop 3Sg foot be-broken 3Sg hand be-broken 'When it (=animal) had already fallen into the pit, its leg(s) and forelegs(s) were broken.' ndagaabi—, a bisa gaabi, dee^ a-a hin_^ ga if force—, 3SgS exceed force, then 3SgS-Impf master 3SgO 'If a forcex exceeds a (=another) forcey, then it, overwhelms ity.' ... a ma kaa nan*—' kaa kuna bundu di*~* o hin·*-* ... 3SgS Subju become place Rel Loc wood Def Impf can ka hirow, dee bundu di a-a siiti ga Inf enter, then wood Def 3SgS-Impf squeeze 3SgO '... (so that) it (axe) becomes a place where the wood (=handle) can go in, then the wood, it (=axe) holds it (=handle) tightly.'

mee is a clause-final particle with a somewhat stronger adversarial pragmatic force. It is used especially to reinforce commands, as when an imperative must be repeated to a recalcitrant child or subordinate: koy! 'go!', reinforced koy mee! 'go, dammit!' gaa (
8.5.8 baada, wallaahi, laabudda baada (
a.

b.

aywa [woo di] na yer o tammahaa baada, well [Dem Def] Foe 1P1S Impf hope indeed [woo di ta daa] na yer o tammahaa [Dem Def Top Emph] Foe 1P1S Impf hope 'Well, that's what we hope, indeed, that's exactly what we hope.' yer gey-nda woo oinne baana, 1P1S endure-with Dem peer rain, baada yer gey-nda a oinne indeed 1P1S endure-with 3Sg peer 'We've gone a long time without a rain like that; indeed we've gone a long time without its like.'

236

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization

(421,cont.) c. jaa ay ta baada kaa wannasu ga moreyda since ISgS Top indeed Rel speak 3SgO now na bey ka guna ga Negknow Inf see 3SgO 'since indeed I myself who speak it now have never seen it (=dwarf)' wallaahi 'by God* (
8.5.9 wala Or' in emphatic sense 'even ..." wala is the basic disjunctive conjunction Or' with a following NP (§5.11.4) or sentence (§9.5.4). It can also be used in the emphatic sense 'even ..." with following NP (or adverbial). (422)

alhoor di saa kaa^ a goo [dow di cire], limestone Def time Rel 3SgS be [sand Def under], haya goo doodi kaa yekuwa [nda [wala simoo]] thing be there Rel be-solid [with [even cement]] "The limestone, when it's under the ground, there is something there (=in it) which is harder than even cement.'

Here nda 'with' is used in the comparative sense 'than ...'. In more idiomatic English translation, 'even' would be shifted ('... which is even harder than cement'). In KCh, wala in this emphatic sense remains closely attached to the focal constituent. Perhaps shifting it out of this constituent to any earlier position where wala is syntactically permitted would risk confusion with this particle's more common sense Or'. wala is common in negative sentences ('[not] even'), as in (423). (423)

ay si mey wala^ allaara ISgS ImpfNeg have even riyal Ί don't have even a riyal (small coin).'

For wala with following clause in the similar sense 'even if ...', see end of §9.5.1. wala can be used with a following VP after a negation. Depending on the speaker, the VP is either simple (in which case wala is analysed as a simple particle inserted between MAN marking and VP), or has the form of an infinitival VP (in which case wala appears to function as a serial verb). The two constructions are seen in (424a-b).

8.6 Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories (424)

a.

b.

237

a na wala foo 3SgS Neg even greet 'He didn't even say hello.' a na wala ka foo 3SgS Neg even Inf greet [=424a]

8.6 Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories The DF categories discussed in this chapter are in many cases very productive, to the point where multiple DF marking may occur in a sentence or even on a single constituent. There is no syntactic or logical problem in having more than one Emph constituent, or in having multiple topics. However, focus marking in the sense of §8.1.1-2 is expressed by a clause-level syntactic operation (fronting, plus insertion of an SFoc or Foe particle between the fronted constituent and the rest of the core sentence), so there can only be one focalized constituent per clause in this sense. In examples like (307c) in §8.2.3, above, one could argue that there are two (functional) foci, but only one constituent is syntactically marked as focus.

8.6.1 Topic plus another DF morpheme on same constituent The combinations involving two DF morphemes clearly attached to the same constituent are given in (425). We are concerned here only with DF morphemes that follow their attached constituent. In all cases we have the weak Top particle ta followed by a stronger DF morpheme. These combinations seem to occur mainly with personal pronouns and Dem woo.

(425)

type Top + Top Top + 'also' Top + Emph Top + Emph

morphemes

ta bine ta moo ta daa ta jaatirjdi

example yer^ta bine ijga ta moo woo di ta daa ay ta jaatirjdi

gloss 'as for us ' 'he (she) too' 'that very one' Ί myself

In focus constructions, it is not clear whether the SFoc or Foe morphemes are syntactically part of the fronted constitutent, so we leave combinations involving these morphemes for the following section.

8.6.2 Emphatic plus focus Emph particles, especially the very common daa, are quite common in fronted focused constituents in either the subject or nonsubject focus constructions. The attested combinations are given in (426).

238 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization (426)

type Emph Emph Only' Only*

+ Foe + SFoc + Foe + SFoc

morphemes daa na daa qga nin na nin qga

Examples are given in (427).

(427)

[[hay di kaa yer ο duu [a ra]J daa] na [[thing Def Rel 1P1S Impf get] [3Sg Loc]] Emph] Foe yer o kaa, yer o jamna t 1P1S Impf come, 1P1S Impf share t '[What we earn from it]x [focus] we come and we divide tx.' b. [maa se] [mobil ressort nin] na wor o taasi t? [what? Dat] [vehicle spring only] Foe 2P1S Impf seek tl 'Why is it [only car springs,] [focus] that you(Pl) seek tx T c. i hay m di ye nin qga si hin^ ka kaa a-foo 3P1 millet Def PI only SFoc ImpfNegcan Inf become Absol-one 'It's just their (millet) grains [focus] that cannot turn out the same.' d. [maqgazx woo di yo] yer daa qga goy gi [warehouse Dem Def PI] 1P1S Emph SFoc work 3P1O 'Those warehouses, it was we ourselves [focus] who worked on (=built) them.' a.

(427b) is discussed in another connection in §8.2.3, where it appears as (307c).

8.6.3 Topic plus focus It is not common for a topical constituent to function as the focused constituent. I have no such examples involving Top bine, but with weak Top ta I can cite a few textual examples with ta daa na. In (428), there is an initial sentence with a simple nonsubject focus structure, followed by a repetition where the focused constituent 'that* also gets Top ta and Emph daa. (428)

aywa [woo di] na yer o tammahaa t baada, well [Dem Def] Foe 1P1S Impf wish t indeed, [woo di ta daa] na yer ο tammahaa t [Dem Def Top Emph] Foe 1P1S Impf wish / 'Well, thatx is what we hope tx indeed; thatx is precisely what we hope tx.'

Weak Topic ta can also be followed by nin Only' or moo 'too'. Although topic and focus do not often mix on the same constituent, there are a very large number of cases where a sentence has both a preposed topic NP and a following clause-initial focalized NP, as in (429).

8.6 Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories (429)

moreyda now

WOT

[alhoor di] [musa foo] [limestone Def] [manner which?]

o

gar

ga

239

na Foe

... ?

2P1S Impf find 3SgO ... ? 'Now the limestone,, how do you(Pl) locate it,... ?' Here musa foo '(in) what way?, how?' is the nonsubject focus requiring Foe na, while alhoor di 'the limestone' is a proposed topical NP; arguably moreyda 'now' is a second proposed topic specifying the temporal setting.

8.6.4 Multiple topics Sentences often have more than one NP which function as topics. Either we have two proposed topical NPs, followed by a complete sentence, as in (430a) with a resumptive pronoun representing the second topical NP, or we have one proposed topical NP and a subject NP marked with weak Top ta as in (430b). (430)

a.

b.

[ay ta] moreyda, [[war wane] assanaa woo] [ISg Top] now, [[2P1 Poss] trade Dem] yee baa ye hirow a ra ISgSImpf want ISgSSubju enter 3Sg Loc Ί now, this occupation, of yours(Pl), I want to enter into it,.' [wiroi woo] [yer^ ta] si bey ga [disease Dem] [IPT Top] ImpfNeg know 3SgO "That disease,, we don't know it,.'

We might also consider proposed adverbial expressions ('now', 'here', 'in this country') which specify the spatial or temporal setting to be topics, though of a different functional type than expressions which establish discourse referents as topics. If so, (430a) actually has three proposed topical expressions, including 'now'.

8.6.5 Relativization and focus In many languages, relative clauses make use of a construction that operates, in main clauses, as either a topicalizing or a focalizing mechanism. That is, a construction that functions in main clauses to indicate more or less clearcut discourse categories is appropriated in relatives to indicate coreference between the relativized NP and the head NP. It follows that the relevant construction is not available to mark true topic or focus in relative clauses. In KCh, relativization formally resembles the main-clause focus constructions, since both front (extract) an NP, leaving at most a phonologically null trace in the original site. Nonetheless, relativization and focalization are autonomous and may cooccur. We need to consider in turn four cases defined by the intersection of two

240 8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization variables: a) the relativized NP (or a PP containing it) is the same as or different from the focalized constituent; and b) the focalized constituent is subject or nonsubject. When a nonsubject NP is relativized on, it is fairly common for the subject NP to be separately focalized, as in (431). (431)

a.

b.

a ci hay a kaa ntende qga^ o fatta-ndi ga... 3SgSbe thing Rel ants S Foe Impf exit-Caus 3SgO ... 'It (=limestone), is a thing, which,, ants [focus] bring it, out...' boro yo kaa ni rjga kate t person PI Rel 2Sg SFoc bring t 'people, whomx you [focus] have brought tx '

'Ants' (43la) and 'you' (43Ib) are the focalized subjects, with SFoc rjga. (43la) has a resumptive pronoun (3Sg ga), suggesting that the intervening focalization has blocked extraction of the relative pronoun. The result is that the relative clause has the form of a main clause, and one can argue that a "restart" has occurred. The type in (43Ib), where extraction has occurred in spite of the intervening focalization (note the phonologically unrealized trace), is less common but is attested several times. It is not so common for a relativized subject NP to also be overtly focalized. However, (432) shows that this can be done when the relativized subject NP is expressed as an overt (i.e. resumptive) pronoun. In the usual situation where this is a third person pronoun, it takes "3F" form (3SgF rjga, 3P1F rjgi-yd) since it is focalized (by the following SFoc rjga). This construction, seen in (432), perhaps really involves a "restart" resulting in main-clause form. (432)

haya nono kaa rjga ga ci guuru thing it-is Rel 3SgF SFoc be metal 'It, is a thing, which it, [focus] is solid metal.'

yekuwa-nte solid-Partpl

It is also possible to focalize a nonsubject NP distinct from the relativized NP, but this again seems to require a resumptive pronoun (433a) and main-clause form, unless the relativized NP is a possessor or complement of a noun-like postposition (433b).

(433)

a.

b.

woo ci har di kaa [bii na a kaa] Dem be man Def Rel [yesterday Foe 3SgS come] "This is the man, who, it was yesterday [focus] that he, came.' saddaasu di yo kaa jere na ay goro soldier Def PI Rel beside Foe ISgS sit 'the (particular) soldiers [beside whom] [focus] I sat'

The fourth combination of relativization and focalization is when a nonsubject NP or PP is both relativized on and focused. Foe na is fairly common with relativized PPs, as in (434).

8.6 Co-occurrence of major discourse-functional categories 241 (434)

a.

b.

ijga ta^ o hoqgu dow di daa nono 3SgF Top Impf believe sand Def Emph it-is [kaa ga] na rjgu_^ o dira [Rel on] Foe LogoSgS Impf walk 'It (=animal) thought that it was (solid) ground on which it was walking.' a oere di yo [kaa se] na a wannasu ga 3Sg friend Def PI [Rel Dat] Foe 3SgS talk 3SgO 'his friends, to whom he described it'

For optional na in saa di kaa na... 'when ...' and muso kaa na... 'the way ...', see §8.3.6. This optional na has no focalizing function and will be glossed simply as 0 in interlineare; there may or may not be a historical relationship between it and Focus na.

8.6.6 Relativization and topic Since there are few syntactic restrictions on the weak Top morpheme fa, it is not surprising that it may occur on the subject NP in a relative clause where a nonsubject NP has been relativized on, as in (435). (435)

a.

b.

boro di kaa [yer_^ ta] guna yer koyroo kuna person Def Rel [IPT Top] see 1P1 this-town Loc 'the man whom we've seen in this town of ours' saa di kaa [ay ta] bey time Def Rel [ISg Top] know 'when I knew*

Topic particles may not, however, be attached directly to the Rel morpheme kaa. Preposed topical constituents also appear to be avoided within relative clauses, since such proposed constituents are really outside the syntactic boundaries of the juxtaposed sentences.

8.6.7 Subjunctive mood and focus Subjunctive clauses tend to be less "vivid" than main clauses, since they typically denote hypothetical event types. Overt focalization is uncommon in subjunctive clauses. However, textual examples of nonsubject focus (436a) and subject focus (436b-c) do occur, and there is clearly no syntactic restriction on them.

242 (436)

8 Discourse-functional constructions and relativization a.

b.

c.

woo di duu-rey na ma duu — Dem Def gain-Abstr Foe 2SgSSubju get— 'it is [the profit of that (activity)] [focus] that you should earn—' i si nan ga woo di ye ga 3P1S ImpfNeg leave 3SgO Dem Def PI on qgi-ye r/ga ma hina ga 3P1F SFocSubju cook 3SgO 'They, don't leave it (cooking) to themy, for it to be theyy [focus] who cook it.' bara ni qga ma samba a cipsi di must 2Sg SFoc Subju send 3Sg sacrificial-ram Def 'It must be you [focus] who sends his sacrificial ram (for the feast).'

Chapter 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

9.1 Object NPs and other postverbalconstituents 9.1.1 Ordering and cliticization of postverbal constituents The ordering of postverbal constituents is basically determined by two main factors. First, certain types of constituents must occur at or near the end of the clause. This applies most rigorously to DF morphemes with clausal scope, where clause-final positioning is obligatory. However, even full phrasal constituents may gravitate toward the end of the clause, either because they are semantically peripheral or because they represent afterthought-like elaborations of referents which are represented earlier in the sentence. Moreover, "heavy" constituents that might otherwise occur closer to the verb may be shifted (extraposed) to clause-final position. The second generalization is that, after hiving off these clause-final elements, the remaining phrasal constituents are normally ordered in such a way that pronominalized, "old," or otherwise backgrounded referential material occurs in immediate postverbal position, followed by noun-headed, "new," or otherwise relatively foregrounded material. Consider (437a-b). (437)

a.

b.

n si mey [a se] hin-ey [ni foo] 2SgS ImpfNeg have [3SgDat] mastery [2Sg one] 'You can't have mastery over it (=handle it) by yourself.' yer o ta koosu [a doo] feeji cijoo 1P1S Impf Fut slaughter [3Sg chez] sheep tonight 'We will slaughter a sheep tonight at her place.'

In (437a), ni foo 'by yourself is a kind of delayed elaboration on the preverbal 2SgS pronoun, so it occurs finally. This leaves two other postverbal constituents, the Dat PP a se 'to (for) it' and the indefinite direct object NP hin-ey 'mastery'. Although the interpretation of the Dat PP is dependent on that of hin-ey, which would seem to favor the ordering... hin-ey [a se]..., the preference for putting backgrounded (especially pronominal) material first prevails, so we get ... [a se] hin-ey ... . Likewise, in (437b), one might expect the direct object 'sheep' to follow the verb immediately, on grounds of semantic bracketing, but instead the pronominal PP 'at her place* intervenes. In both (437a) and (437b), with a pronominal PP preceding a noun-headed direct object NP, informants strongly disapprove of the reverse ordering. One possible analysis is that a pronominal PP is enclitic to the verb. An "enclitic" is an unstressed morpheme (or morpheme string) which is attached to a preceding full-fledged word. We could hypothesize that object pronominals and pronominal PPs are cliticized to the verb, while full NPs (and full-NP-headed PPs) cannot be. Consider now (438).

244 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

ay bar ga [war se] ISgS say 3SgO [2PI Dat] said it to you(Pl).'

(438)

Here there are not one but two pronominal postverbal constituents, direct object ga and Dat war se. We may consider this to be an enclitic string, attached as a whole to the verb bar. In such cases, the direct object enclitic obligatorily precedes any cliticized PP. The cliticization analysis is useful in accounting for pronominal morphology as well as constituent order. In (438) we have an instance of 3SgO ga, which differs in form from a short 3Sg allomorph a. The longer ga is used in direct object function, in which case it immediately follows the verb (for a 'give' construction with two such object clitics, see the following section), ga is also the 3Sg form following the preposition nda 'and, with'. The a variant is used in other functions including subject, possessor of NP, and object of postposition. The 3P1 variants gi and i follow the same pattern (§4.1.1). We could argue that the gV variants are required when the third person pronominal is a) enclitic (to a verb or ndä), and b) is not bracketed with another following morpheme (i.e., a postposition). Alternatively, we could limit enclitic status to direct-object pronouns, in which case condition (b) could be dispensed with since PPs would not be covered. But a good case can be made for taking certain pronominal PPs as clitics. First, the ordering of pronominal PPs before nonpronominal complements, as in (437), seems to be obligatory with certain postpositions; the rare counterexamples in texts probably reflect clause-internal repairs and are not confirmed in elicitation. Second, irregular forms for the ISg and 2Sg dative combinations, used only in postverbal position, are best analysed as special enclitic forms. Consider (439). (439)

a.

b.

c.

a-a jafa yene alhoor di 3SgS-Impf carve ISgDat limestone Def 'He cuts the limestone for me.' ay bar ga mana ISgS say 3SgO 2SgDat 'Isaid it to you.' [ni se] na ay bar ga [2S g Dat] Foe ISgS say 3SgO 'It was [to you] [focus] that I said it.'

Irregular ISgDat yene and ISgDat mana (§3.8.1-2) occur not only when immediately following a verb (439a), but also as part of a larger postverbal clitic complex as in (439b), which is structurally parallel to (438). On the other hand, when the Dat PP is fronted by focalization, as in (439c), we revert to regular, non-clitic forms such as 2Sg Dat ni se. This suggests that pronominal Dat PPs are enclitics, like pronominal object morphemes. It is more difficult to determine whether pronominal spatial PPs with postpositions ra, kuna, and ga should also be considered enclitics when they occur postverbally, since there are no similar irregularities with these postpositions.

9. / Object NPs and other postverbal constituents

245

However, a case can be made for enclitic status on the grounds that such pronominal PPs normally precede full NPs functioning as direct objects. Parallel to (437) with Dat PP, we have many textual examples of spatial PPs like those in (440a-b). In the textual passage (440c), the first clause shows the PP a ra 'in it' in the usual postverbal enclitic position, but the second clause seems to be a counterexample with a ra following the postverbal NP jombu yo '(melon) gardens'. However, in this second clause there is a hesitation pause after the verb dam. To have continued with a ra after the pause would have put an enclitic in a maximally exposed position not suitable for an enclitic. So a ra has relocated after the first postpausal constituent, which happens to be jombu yo. This "counterexample" therefore actually supports the enclitic analysis, and further "counterexamples" which readers may encounter in the texts may actually involve similar internal repairs, whether or not the transcription catches the hesitations perfectly. (440)

a.

b.

c.

ay_^ jaati si jen ka mey [a kuna] hay a kaa... ISg self ImpfNeg fail Inf have [3 S g Loc] thing Rel ... Ί myself do not fail to have something in it which ..." ni koy kaa [i ga] ham dooti 2SgS go become [3PI on] meat there 'You went and became meat (=became useless) on them there.' i-i fan [a ra] saaba, 3PlS-Impf farm [3 S g Loc] sorghum,

i-i

dam—

[jombu yo]

[a

ra]

3PlS-Impf put— [garden PI] [3Sg Loc] 'They raise sorghum in it, they make—(melon) gardens in it.' The more noun-like postpositions such as banda (as noun: 'back'; as postposition: 'behind' or 'together with') produce PPs which are formally identical or similar to possessed nouns: ay banda 'my back' or 'behind me'. It is more difficult to think of these as enclitics than the shorter, high-frequency Dat and abstract spatials shown above, and they do not consistently gravitate to immediate postverbal position. PPs with doo 'at (the place of)' likewise show no strong enclitic tendencies. Instrumental-Comitative nda 'with' plus a pronominal complement can also, arguably, be considered part of enclitic complexes. However, such forms as nda ga 'with it' follow pronominal direct objects, and typically follow simple pronominal PPs (such as datives). In other words, pronominal nda phrases come at the end of the enclitic sequence. When e.g. nda ga precedes a pronominal dative PP, we arc generally not dealing with an independent Instr-Comit phrase, rather with a fused (suffixal) -nda and its direct object pronoun (§6.2.5). The enclitic status of nda plus pronominal complement is also applicable to stranded nda in cases where its complement (pronoun or full NP) has been fronted, as in non-subject focalization (§8.1.1), WH-interrogatives (§8.2.3), and relativization (§8.3.4). While only pronominals and certain pronominal adpositional phrases can be described as actual enclitics, postverbal full NPs expressing old (and other relatively

246

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

accessible) referential material also precede NPs introducing new material, as shown in (441). (441)

a.

ay

dam

[ije

keyna

di

se]

safari

ISgS do [child small Def Dat] treatment Ί administered treatment to the young child.' b. ay sufur /Jeff ga] mobil ISgS rent [Jeff on] vehicle Ί rented a vehicle from Jeff.' c. no-o filla dam [albarraada di ra] hari 2SgS-Impf repeat put [kettle Def Loc] water 'You again put some water in the tea-kettle.' In (441a-c), putting the indefinite direct-object NP before the semantically definite PPs would be unidiomatic. However, such inversions are not totally ungrammatical, and if the PP contains a "heavy" NP it is not unusual for the PP to follow the indefinite direct-object NP, as in (442). (442)

ay dam safari [bar di se [kaa kaa nee]] ISgS do treatment [man Def Dat [Rel come here]] Ί administered treatment to the man who came here.'

Sentences with two semantically definite full NPs as direct object and complement of a postposition are rare in texts, since in most contexts one or the other would be pronominalized. Elicited examples suggest that in such cases, speakers tend to fall back on an ordering that reflects decreasing grammatical centrality. The direct object therefore usually precedes PPs, but verbs like 'give' and 'show' where a Dat PP is obligatory and grammatically central may put this PP before the direct object. Representative examples are in (443). (443)

a.

ay

sufur

[mobil

woo]

/Jeff

ga]

ISgS rent [vehicle Dem] [Jeff on] Ί rented this vehicle from Jeff.' b. ay cerbu /Jeff se] huu di ISgS show [Jeff Dat] house Def Ί showed Jeff the house.' 9.1.2 Double-object constructions ('give', 'show') With the verb noo 'give', on the other hand, the morphological distinction between direct and indirect (dative) object is neutralized under certain conditions. There are three surface possibilities, shown schematically in (444), where X denotes the transferred entity and Υ denotes the recipient. In the Schemas, Υ se includes the morphologically irregular postverbal ISgDat and 2SgDat combinations.

9. 1 Object NPs and other postverbal constituents (444)

247

a. jjoo X[Y se] b. noo[Y se]X c. noo Υ Χ

The choice between (444a) and (444b) is describable in terms of the more general rules and tendencies given in the preceding section. Pronominals strongly tend to precede noun-headed NPs, pronominal object-markers obligatorily precede PPs (including pronominal ones), and an NP denoting old referential material tends to precede one introducing new material. So we get type (444a) in (445a-c) and type (444b) in (445d).

(445)

a. b.

c. d.

ay noo ga [i se] ISgS give 3SgO [3P1 Dat] Ί gave it to them.' ay noo ga [woy di ISgS give 3SgO [woman Def Ί gave it to the woman.' ay noo hari di [woy ISgS give water Def [woman Ί gave the water to a woman.' ay noo [woy di se] ISgS give [woman Def Dat] Ί gave the woman some water.'

se] Dat]

se] Dat] hari water

The alternative construction unique to noo 'give' is (444c), where both Υ and X take the surface form of direct objects.with Υ (logical recipient) preceding X. There arc some syntactic restrictions on this pattern (§8.3.2), but in simple sentences where Υ is ISg or 2Sg, it is virtually obligatory. Examples in (446).

(446)

a.

b.

ay noo ni ga ISgS give 2SgO3SgO Ί gave it to you.' / noo_^ ey njerfu 3P1S give ISgO money "They gave me some money.'

o^ ey in (446b) regularly has the contracted pronunciation [nej]. This construction is used whether X is expressed by a second pronominal (446a) or by a full NP (446b). So in (446a) we get the strange combination of two consecutive directobject pronominale, a sequence allowed nowhere else in the language. One should not confuse ni ga in (446a) with the homophonous PP meaning On you'. The verbs 'give' and 'show' do not normally co-occur with the postposition ga, so there is little risk of confusion. Pattern (444c) is also common when Υ is a pronoun other than ISg or 2Sg, and when in addition X is expressed by a full NP. Examples in (447).

248 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (447)

a. b.

c.

boro

kul kaa hin^ ka noo yer

[a

wane fahaam-ey

di]

person all Rel can Inf give 1P1O [SSgPoss understanding Def] 'anyone who can give us information about it' no-o noo gi njerfu 2SgS-Impf give 3PI Ο money 'You give them some money.' no-o noo ga [a tirkose] 2SgS-Impf give 3SgO [3Sg lunch] 'You give him his lunch.'

Such combinations result less commonly in pattern (444b), as in (448). The only difference is the appearance of the Dat morpheme on the Υ pronominal.

(448)

yer ο

har i

se i

ma

noo yer se

i-dumb-o

1P1S Impf say 3P1 Dat 3PlSSubju give 1P1 Dat Absol-small-Adj 'We tell them to give us a piece.' However, when Υ is a pronoun other than ISg or 2Sg, and when X is expressed by a third person pronoun rather than a full NP, we seem to get type (444a), as in (449).

(449)

a.

rjgu

b.

LogoSgS ImpfNeg can" Inf give 3SgO [1P1 Dat] '(He says) he can't give it to us.' no-o noo ga^ [i se] 2SgS-Impf give 3SgO [3PI Dat] 'You give it to them.'

si

hin_^ ka

noo ga

[yer

se]

Examples with first or second person in the X (transferred object) role, as in 'They gave you to him,' do not occur in my data. The syntax of 'give' also works for cerbu 'show'. (450a,c) show the doubleobject pattern, while (450b) has a dative indirect object. The double-object pattern is somewhat less common for 'show' than for 'give', samba 'send' is often a wellbehaved transitive-plus-dative verb, but textual examples like (450d) show that it can express a pronominal indirect object as a direct-object enclitic before a full NP functioning as theme (object sent).

(450)

a. b.

c.

qgi-ye

na

derbu

ga

[ggi-ye

bomo]

LogoPIS Neg show 3SgO [3ReflPl head] '(Theyx said) theyx didn't show themselves^ to him.' yerkoy na Serbu ga [ay ta se] God Neg show 3SgO [ISg Top Dat] 'God hasn't shown it to me.' ay^ cerbu ni [huu di] ISgS show 2SgO [house Def] Ί showed you the house.'

9.2 Adjectival intensifying interjections

d

i-i

samba gi

[hanjire

249

tuu]

3PlS-Impf send 3P1O [parent-in-law plate] "They send them (=parents-in-law) a ceremonial parent-in-law plate.' nin 'drink', qaa 'eat', and bey 'know' are transitive verbs: qaa ga 'eat it' (with 3SgO g ). The direct object is often omitted as in English (Ί have drunk', Ί have eaten,' Ί know'). They are thus only weakly transitive, and accordingly can be made causative by adding Fact-Caus suffix -ndi (§6.2.2), hence nin-di 'give to drink', rjaa-ndi 'feed', and bey-ndi 'inform, teach', ffin-ditends to be used in special senses including 'irrigate'. The causatives of 'eat' and 'know' are recorded in VPs of the type ijaa-ndi Υ Ζ and bey-ndi Υ Ζ, with two unmarked postverbal NPs, one (Y) representing the underlying agent of 'eat' or 'know', the other (Z) representing the underlying object. As usual with postverbal constituents, the linear order of Υ and Ζ is variable (§9.1.1). No adposition is present in the available examples, whether both Υ and Ζ remain in place, or one of them is extracted (e.g. as a WH-interrogative). An example involving extraction is (451); see also (207b-c) in §6.2.2. (451)

mey na ni gaa-ndi t who? Foe 2SgS eat-Caus t 'Who(m)x did you feed tx porridge?'

bital porridge?

The verb ton Till' takes instrumental complements showing overt preposition nda 'with' (452), so this verb has no true double-object construction. (452)

a.

b.

ay ton oaaku di nda tondi ISgS f i l l sack Def with stone Ί filled up the sack with stones.' maa na n ton nda t caaku dil what? Foe 2SgS f i l l with t sack Def? 'What, did you(Sg) fill the sack with tx ?'

9.2 Adjectival intensifying interjections The unmarked way to intensify any VP is to add the serial verb Ksa to get hlsa ka VP 'VP very much' (§9.7.6). This is serviceable, but stylistically colorless. Some intransitive verbs of adjectival quality, and a few other verbs, have an associated intensifying interjection. The intensifier commonly follows the basic verb, or the related adjective: a bibi tirik! 'it was pitch black.' In conversations, the listener may complete the speaker's sentence by adding an intensifier, a move which demonstrates the listener's involvement. Such lexically specific intensifiers can be compared roughly to English expressions such as snow white, pitch black, dead drunk, and brand new, but the grammatical structure is different. The precise set of intensifiers is somewhat variable from speaker to speaker, and in general these intensifiers belong to the expressive and therefore non-rigid side of the language. A representative set of intensifiers is given in (453).

250 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (453)

basic verb a. bibi korey Sirey kara firji b. hottu tar koron yey kaan ton

gloss 'be black' 'be white' 'be red' 'be yellow' 'be green, blue' 'be spicy' 'be tasteless* 'be hot' 'be cold, slow* 'be sweet, sharp' 'be fall'

intensifier tirikl far! jaram! buy! jeti! tey! batak! jowl sa}bey! gey! met!,pet!

On the whole, my Timbuktu speakers made less use of such intensifiers than did speakers of other Songhay varieties (e.g. HS). Two intensifiers were elicited in combination with several verbs and appear to have a kind of "default intensifier" status. One is gey!, which one informant gave with several verbs ('be distant', 'be near', 'be small', 'be big', 'be fast') in addition to 'be sweet, sharp' as shown in (453b). The other is far!, which may well be the normal intensifier for 'white' as shown in (453a), but is also an all-purpose intensifier attested in texts with many types of VP. As in many languages, such expressive interjections may diverge from phonological patterns. The examples in (453) diverge from normal stem shapes in two major respects. First, intensifiers may end in a stop (tirik!, batak!). Second, intensifiers (but not other stems) allow the diphthong uy (buy!), cf. §3.3.1.

9.3 Operators and scope 9.3.1 Types of adverbials In (454) we give a rough, Jackendoff-style classification of semantic (and possibly syntactic) types of adverbial expressions in various languages based primarily on the type of (semantic) constituent that they modify. (454)

type English example pragmatic frankly; hopefully quantificational again; at first; twice spatiotemporal here; tomorrow VP-oriented (manner) softly; loudly subject-oriented on purpose; carefully NP-oriented (girl) with a dog, (boy) in the house

Pragmatic adverbs relate to the speech act (especially the speaker's attitude) rather than to the narrated eventualities. Quantificational adverbs operate on eventualities

9.3 Operators and scope

251

(usually events rather than states). Spatiotemporal adverbs provide a setting for eventualities. Subject-oriented adverbs focus on the subject NP, especially in connection with volitionality and attention. VP-oriented adverbs include most of the classic "manner" adverbials. Finally, NP-oriented adverbials are usually instrumentalcomitative or Spatiotemporal adverbials that function as reduced relative clauses attached to a particular NP. KCh appears to be thin in pragmatic adverbials. Equivalents of English frankly and hopefully, for example, are separate full clauses like Ί tell you the truth' or 1 hope (that ...)'. In elicitation, soobey was obtained as a proposed 'frankly, ...' adverbial; this stem is elsewhere used as a verb meaning 'be serious'. See also the discussions of DF particles moo 'also, too* (§8.5.5), nin Only' (§8.5.2), and sanda 'like' (§8.5.6), all of which seem to have some uses that relate to pragmatic structure. Adverbs that quantify over events include the obvious 'X times' phrases. We will also consider under this rubric expressions like 'again' and 'for a while'. (455)

Quantificational adverbials form a. See foo £ee higka b. koyne c. jinaa

gloss Once' 'twice' 'again' 'for a while, at first'

The "X times" adverbials in (455a) are straightforward; see §5.4.9. They take the entire eventuality including both subject and VP in their scope, as in English. Examples of koyne 'again, further' are in (456).

(456)

a.

b.

c.

[saa di] i-i duu ka dam ga [time Def] 3PlS-Impf proceed Inf put 3SgO [nuune di ra] koyne [fire Def Loc] again "Then, they (blacksmiths) proceed to put it (axe) into the fire again.' [woo di banda] [alfajar here di ra] [Dem Def behind] [dawn around Def Loc] a filla kar koyne 3Sg repeat hit again 'After that (=first rain), around dawn it (=rain) recommenced falling again.' nan^ kul kaa woo go dam jirbi-iiye place all Rel Dem Impf be-done day-seven nda a duu hay kaa tun^ndi ijgu koyne if 3SgS get thing Rel arise-Caus 3ReflSgO again 'any time that (=rain) lasts a week, if it finds something that raises (=reinforces) it further*

These examples show that koyne is used in contexts of repetition of an event, as in (456a), and prolongation or other augmentation of an eventuality, as in (456c) and

252

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

perhaps (456b). It should be noted that the serial verbs yee 'return' and filla 'repeat' with a following infinitival VP (§9.7.5) are often used in contexts involving repetition; filla co-occurs with koyne in (456b). koyne interacts interestingly with negation; see §9.3.5 for details. jinaa 'first, at first, for a while, for the time being' is exemplified in (457). (457)

a.

b.

i-i 3PlS-Impf 'They slash it.' /'-/' 3PlS-Impf

jinaa

jokoro jinaa i-i dam a ra hayni di slash first 3PlS-Impf put 3Sg Loc millet Def holes in the ground first, (then) they put millet (seeds) in har say

a-foo

a-woy^dindi-guu, Absol-ten-remainder-five,

i-i

har

waranka

first Absol-one 3PlS-Impf say twenty 'They (buyers) say (=offer to buy) fifteen, then for each one some say twenty.' These examples illustrate the frequent use of jinaa as a linker between two clauses denoting events that are strictly ordered chronologically. The construction is thus A jinaa B where A and B represent clauses. The prosodic break (shown as a comma) can be either before or after jinaa In the case of A jinaa, B where jinaa behaves prosodically as a clause-final particle for A, we may translate fairly literally as Ά first, (then) B.' In the case of A, jinaa Β we could translate as Ά (first), then B.' The parenthesized adverbials (first, then) can be derived inferentially in either translation. In these constructions, jinaa closely resembles parallel uses of the Emph particle dee (§8.5.7). However, jinaa has distinct properties under negation, where it means '(not) yet' (§9.3.5). Other English quantificational adverbs are rendered in KCh by specialized serial verbs followed by infinitival VPs. Some relevant serial verbs are filla 'repeat', yee 'return, do again', and dooney 'be accustomed to' (§9.7.5). Spatiotemporal adverbials usually provide a setting (in space or time) for the entire eventuality denoted by the sentence. They may follow the verb, be fronted (extracted) in the nonsubject focus construction (§8.1.1), or be preposed as topic-like constituents preceding the sentence (§8.4.1). Preposing is typical of temporal rather than spatial adverbials; it is standard with saa di 'then, at that time, in that situation, so', which connects the time or situation of the following sentence with that of prior discourse. In the case of moreyda 'now', proposing is fairly common, but it tends to follow another proposed topical constituent ('[The man] now, he came here"), suggesting a kind of enclitic status. The primary spatial adverbials like nee 'here' and doodi ~ dooti 'there' generally follow the verb or, if highlighted, are focalized. Spatiotemporal PPs with (mainly spatial) postpositions like ga 'by, on, from', or Loc ra or kuna, are tricky because they are often complements of verbs (of motion, stance, etc.), as in 'they entered [into the house],' rather than stage-setters for the entire eventuality. Their interactions with verbs are described, with many examples, in §11.1.

9.3 Operators and scope 253 English lexical manner adverbials, with VP scope, are generally rendered by constructions involving two verbs, either in two separate clauses or in a serial-verb combination. Thus 'we dig deeply into the ground' comes out in KCh as 'we dig, so that (subjunctive) we go far under the ground,' while 'it rises rapidly' is expressed in serial-verb form as KCh 'it hurries to arise.' There are, however, some forms that are commonly added to VPs in the fashion of English lexical manner adverbs, notably those in (458). (458)

form mooso, mooso-mooso tamba, tamba-tamba

gloss 'gently, slowly, delicately' 'fast, quickly, immediately, early'

Examples of the two adverbials are (459a-b). (459c) shows that the negation of tamba is the common way to translate '(come, be) late'. (459)

a.

b.

c.

nda ni waay [nda ga] tamba if 2SgS be-aware [with 3SgO] fast 'if you(Sg) become aware of it promptly' a-a fana mooso-mooso 3SgS-Impf crawl Rdp-slow 'He crawls slowly.' a na kaa tamba 3SgS Neg come fast 'He came late.' (lit., 'He didn't come early.')

tamba can also be used as a verb 'hurry, do fast, go fast', and can therefore occur in imperatives like (460a). mooso, on the other hand, remains adverbial in the sense 'do slowly' and combines with the "light" verb dam 'do', as in (460b). (460)

a.

b.

wo tamba 2PlImpera do-fast 'You(Pl) do it quickly!' (imperative) wo dam mooso 2PlImpera do slow 'You(Pl) do it slowly (gently)!' (imperative)

Subject-oriented adverbials resemble manner adverbials in their syntactic position, but have a specific semantic relationship to the subject NP. KCh appears to lack lexical subject-oriented adverbials (On purpose', 'carefully'). On purpose' is expressed not by an adverbial, rather by a serial-verb construction, as in (461), which could be literally glossed as e.g. 'she meant to hit me' but which has a stronger implication that the intended action was carried out. (461)

a murey ka 3SgS do-on-purpose Inf 'She hit me on purpose.'

kar hit

ey ISgO

254

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

Instrumental-comitative phrases consisting of nda 'with, and' and a following NP (§5.11.3-4) function in some cases as subject-oriented adverbials, in other cases as manner (VP-oriented) adverbials, in still others as regular complements of particular verbs (§6.1.6). In (462a), the associates (even though inanimate) are strongly connected with the agent-subject, hence a paraphrase like '[You and they (=tools)] will go and work.' Instrumental phrases like that in (462b) are a little harder to massage into a similar paraphrase, but the instrument (here 'limestone' as a building material) is a necessary link between the agent and the denoted activity ('build it'). On the other hand, idiomatic phrases with nda like 'by its road' (= 'properly') in (462c) are best described as manner adverbials, and in this particular case the 3Sg pronoun possessor is probably coreferential to the direct object 'it' (=wall). (462)

a.

ni 2Sg

rjga_^ o SFoc Impf

nda [ni

b.

c.

wan

koy go

di

goy nda [[[a work with [[[3Sg

yo]]

wan Poss

di yo] Def PI]

kul]

and [2Sg Poss Def PI]] all] 'It's you who will go work, both with his (things) and (with) your (things).' Tio-o hin^ ka Sen ga [nda ga] [musoo di daa] 2SgS-ImpfcaiT Inf build 3Sg [with 3Sg] [like-this Def Emph] 'You(Sg) can built it (=wall) with it (=limestone) in this way.' ma dam ga [nda a fondo di] 2SgSSubju do 3SgO [with 3Sg path Def] 'You(Sg) should do it thoroughly.'

KCh does not appear to allow NP-oriented adverbials like the English PPs in the man in the beaver hat or the woman with the gun. These English expressions function like reduced relative clauses ('the man who has the beaver hat'). KCh uses explicit relatives clauses as in (463a), or Characteristic derivatives ('gun person') as in (463b). (463)

a.

b.

bar di [kaa dam budeli di] koy man Def [ReI put baggy-pants Def] go 'The man in (=who has put on) the baggy pants left.' malfa-koy di koy gun-Char Def go "The person with a gun (gun-person) left.'

9.3.2 Clause-internal and higher-level (metalinguistic) negation Ordinary (clause-internal) negation is expressed primarily by the morphemes in (464). (464)

form si sii na

gloss ImpfNeg 'not-be' Neg

comments preverbal MAN morpheme locational quasi-verb preverbal MAN morpheme

positive counterpart ο-go goo (zero)

9.3 Operators and scope

255

For the MAN system in general, see §7.2. On the status of locational quasi-verb sii and its positive counterpart goo, see §7.1.2 and §8.2.1. Some lexical stems with one kind or another of built-in negative sense, though not grammatically negative, are given in (465). (465)

form jen jegey morjgo yaada

gloss 'fail (to ...)' 'absence, lack' 'fail (at), be unable' 'be worthless, free'

comments serial verb plus infinitival VP compound final intr. or tr. verb, or serial verb verb or adjective

jen is useful in that it can itself be preceded by Inf[initive] ka in an infinitival VP, where the preverbal MAN morphemes in (464) are not allowed. Likewise, the (etymologically related) compound final jeηey is the nearest approximation of negation within a NP. In addition to clause-internal negation, there is a more complex construction that can be used with either a NP (466c) or a clause in its scope. The construction begins with a na oi ... 'it is not ...' When the complement is a clause, the 'that ...' conjunction kaa is occasionally used (466a), though more often omitted (466b). This higher-level construction can be used for "metalinguistic" negation, e.g., to correct a phrase or sentence previously uttered by the current speaker (self-correction) or by someone else. As we will see, a higher-level negation may result in more transparent scope relationships vis- -vis a quantifier. For now, note the split-level negation in (466b). (466)

a.

b.

c.

a na £i kaa ay guna har foo 3SgS Neg be that ISgS see man one 'It's not the case that I saw one man.' a na di [ay ηga na bana] 3SgS Neg be [ISg SFoc Neg pay] 'It wasn't I [focus] who did not pay.' a na δι h ySi 3SgS Neg be dog 'It's not a dog.'

Under certain conditions a higher-level negation, or other syntactically "distant" negation, can trigger a shift from indicative to subjunctive mood. See §9.6.5.

9.3.3 Negation and quantifiers A negative morpheme [si sii na} often co-occurs intrasententially with a quantifier. We begin by considering foo One', which often functions as an indefinite in existential contexts (467).

256 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (467)

a.

b.

c.

d

e.

[boro foo] si bey musa kaa nono [person one] ImpfNeg know manner Rel it-is 'Nobody knows what (sort of thing) it will be.' [haya foo] si filla duu ga [thing one] ImpfNeg repeat get 3SgO 'Nothing can afflict it again.' [yekuwa foo] si cindi a ra [strength one] ImpfNeg remain 3Sg Loc 'No strength remains in it.' ma na bana [haya foo] 2SgS N eg pay [thing one] 'You(Sg) haven't paid anything.' ammaa [ije foo] ni si hin^ ka kow ga but [child one] 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf remove 3SgO 'But you can't extract a single piece.'

Semantically, the negation has wide scope in all cases, even when the indefinite is in subject position, preceding the negation, as in (467a-c), or when the indefinite is a preposed topical constituent, as in (467e). Thus (467a) can be paraphrased as 'It is not the case that for some χ, χ knows' but not as 'For some χ, χ doesn't know.' The combinations boro foo 'someone, anyone, no-one* and haya foo 'something, anything, nothing' are very common. When the indefinite NP consists of a bare noun without foo, we get examples like those in (468). (468)

a.

b.

hew sii^ [a ra] wind be-not [3Sg Loc] 'There is (was) no wind.' boro si hin [a person ImpfNeg can [3Sg One can have no control over it.'

ra] Loc]

hin-ey mastery

With a mass noun like 'wind' in (468a), it is clear that the negation again has wide scope ('it is not the case that there was some wind'). With a countable noun like bor(o) 'person* in (468b), on the other hand, we can construe it generically, in which case there is no clear truth-conditional difference between wide-scope negation ('for no representative χ is it the case that χ could control it') and narrow-scope negation ('for a representative χ, χ could not control it'). However, even such cases are at least compatible with a wide-scope reading. The other high-frequency quantifier in negative sentences is kul 'all, every, each*. Some examples are in (469). (469)

a.

yer na hin_^ ka guna [boro kul] 1P1S Neg can Inf see [person all] 'We couldn't see anyone.'

9.3 Operators and scope 257 b. c.

attey si mey [haya kul] kaa... tea ImpfNeg have [thing all] Rel ... 'Tea has nothing which ...' [hambur kul] na hirow [ay ra] [fear all] Neg enter [ISg Loc] 'No fear entered into me.'

Here the negative ordinarily has narrow scope regardless of the syntactic role (subject or nonsubject) of the quantified NP; (469a) can be paraphrased as 'for all x, we could not see x' rather than 'It is not the case that we could see everyone.' Comparing the behavior of foo and kul, the generalization is that their combinations with a negation are interpreted in the manner which produces the strongest assertion (that with the most precise truth conditions). In the case of foo One', the strongest reading is the one with wide-scope negation ('not [... one ...]'), but in that of kul 'all' the strongest reading is the one with narrow-scope negation ('all [... not...]'). The result is that there is no truth-conditional difference between foo and kul in negative contexts. One factor favoring kul is that, unlike foo, it can be freely used with mass (as well as count) NPs, as in (469c). Replacing kul with foo here would be awkward, though perhaps not impossible, cf. (467c). The truth-conditionally weaker interpretations of Neg plus kul 'all' can be elicited provided the context is favorable, as in (470). The preceding material makes it clear that i-kul na bun means 'they did not all die' (i.e., 'it is not true that, for all χ, χ died'), not 'none of them died' (i.e., 'for all χ, χ did not die'). (470)

h ysi hinja di bun, a-foo cindi, dog three Def die, Absol-one remain, saa di, i-kul na bun time Def, AbsolPl-allNegdie 'Three dogs died, the other remained; so, they did not all die.'

However, weak readings are more reliably and frequently expressed by means of higher-level negation with a na oi... 'it is not ...,' introduced at the end of the preceding section. Examples in (471).

(471)

ci [h ySi foo a na be [dog 3SgS Neg one h ySi hiqka na guna ay two Foe ISg see dog 'It's not the case that it was one dog two dogs [focus] that I saw.' b. a na ci [i-kul 3SgS Neg be [3AbsolPl-all 'It's not the case that they all died.'

£

na Foe

ay ISgS

guna], see],

[focus] that I saw; (rather), it was bun] die]

The same effect can be achieved in constructions that already involve higher and lower clauses, as in (472).

258 (472)

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics ay na bar ma wii häySi di yo kul, ISgS Neg say 2SgSSubju kill dog Def PI all, ay bar ma wii a-foo daa ISgS say 2SgSSubju kill Absol-one Emph didn't tell you to kill all the dogs, I told you to kill (just) one.'

However, combinations of a VP with a preceding specialized serial verb are treated like single VPs with respect to negation, as in (473), which has two serial verbs (yee and filla) along with the VP 'do anything well again'.

(473)

a si yee ka filla täsa 3SgS ImpfNeg return Inf repeat do-well [haya foo] koyne [thing one] again 'It will never be good for anything again.'

A slightly different logical interaction between negation and foo One' is seen in (474). The point is that one needs helpers in hosting a large banquet. (474)

[boro jorjgu gaa], boro foo si hin^ ka hisa ga [person hundred meal], person one ImpfNeg can Inf cook 3SgO 'a meal for 100 people, one person cannot cook it (alone).'

9.3.4 Equivalents of negative polarity items KCh does not appear to have any lexical items that are used exclusively as negative polarity items in the fashion of English (not) any, (not) ever, (not) a red cent, etc. (but cf. §5.4.7). The forms that can be used to translate such English expressions are also used in ordinary positive contexts. The main ones are listed in (475). (475)

form foo kul abada far! wala...

gloss (positive) One, a(n)' 'all, every, each' 'always' [rare] 'indeed!' 'even ...; or ...'

gloss (negative contexts') '(not) any, non' [preceding section] '(not) any, none' [preceding section] '(not) ever, never, absolutely not' '(not) at all!' '(not) even ..."

Other such expressions are combinations of a noun with foo or kul, like boro foo 'someone, anyone, no-one' (475a) and haya foo 'something, anything, nothing' (475b); we may add noqgu foo 'somewhere', saa foo 'some time', ban foo 'some day', etc. For haya foo as a verb '(do) anything', see §7.1.5. In (476a), abada (
9.3 Operators and scope 259 (476)

a.

a si din farka fuuya-nte abada 3SgS ImpfNeg seize donkey be-weak-Partpl always 'It (=disease) never afflicts a weak donkey.' b. kuumu ta a si hima ka moor ni far! hoe Top 3SgS ImpfNeg ought Inf be-far 2SgO at-all! Ά hoe, it should never be far from you, period!' c. nda π kar ga nda ndooso di no-o hoijgu if 2SgS hit 3SgO with axe Def 2SgS-Impf think guuru hinka na n kar ere ga, kaa hem, far! metal two Foe 2SgS hit friend by, Rel weep, indeed! 'If you strike it (=limestone) with the pick-ax, you'll think that (=it's as though) it was [two pieces of metal] [focus] that you struck together, which screech, indeed!'

For wala in the sense 'even' (in positive or negative clause), see §8.5.9. 9.3.5 Negation, adverbiale ('again', 'first'), and DF morpheme Only' jinaa 'first, at first, for the time being' was introduced in §9.3.1, with examples in positive contexts. It associates an eventuality whose time interval precedes that of another eventuality, or whose time interval is not seen as permanent. The combination of jinaa with a preceding negative results in the sense 'not yet*. A sentence of the general type 'he has not eaten yet' can be paraphrased (however awkwardly) as 'for now [it is not the case that [he has eaten]],' but not as 'it is not the case that [he ate first],' which would require a higher-level negation. This shows that jinaa rather than the negation has wide scope in single-clause combinations. Examples in (477). (477)

a.

a na hantum jinaa 3SgS Neg write at-first 'He hasn't written yet.' b. hay a lawal kaa no-o thing first Rel 2SgS-Impf no-o tibi^ a se, 2SgS-Impf ρυΓοη 3Sg Dat,

ma

c.

na

noo

ga

dam a se, do 3Sg Dat, a gar 3SgS be-found

wala hari

kaa

nin

jinaa

2SgS Neg give 3SgO even water Rel be-drunk at-first "The first thing that you do for him (guest) is, you put (tea) on for him, (at a time when) it happens that you have not yet even given him water to drink.' saa di fan ta mise foo time Def farming Top manner which? war na lilendi ga jinaa ? 2P1S Neg prepare 3SgO at-first 'Then, the planting, how come you(Pl) have not prepared it yet?'

260 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics For ka jinaa ... as serial verb, see §9.7.5. koyne 'again, further' was likewise introduced in §9.3.1 with positive examples Combining this with a negation gives the sense 'not again, no longer, no more, not any more' in the great majority of cases. A sentence of the type 'he no longer danced' can be paraphrased as 'it is not the case that [he danced further]' but not as 'again [it is not the case that [he danced]].' Therefore in this case the negation has wide scope. Examples in (478). (478)

a. b.

IM si yee koyne 2SgS ImpfNeg return again 'You(Sg) wouldn't have returned again.' IM' si hin^ ka goy koyne 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf work again 'You(Sg) can't work any more.'

However, when the sentence with negation and koyne follows a parallel negative clause ('notX'), we occasionally get the reading '... not [Y] either', paraphrasable as 'again [it is not the case that [Y]]', where koyne rather than the negator has wide scope. The final koyne in (479) appears to be an example of this. The first koyne after alhoor 'limestone' is probably anticipatory, giving a 'neither X, nor Y' construction. (479)

a-a kaa sanda haya kaa hasara, 3SgS-Impf become like thing Rel be-ruined, a na kaa alhoor koyne, 3SgS N eg become limestone again, a na ci laabu, a na δι ferey koyne 3SgS Neg be banco, 3SgS Neg be brick again 'It (deposit of poor-quality limestone) turns out to be something that is no good; it has turned out to be neither (good) limestone, (nor) is it (good) mud-gravel mix, nor is it bricks either.'

The sense 'not ... either' = 'neither' is more typically expressed by moo 'also' (§8.5.5) with a negation, as in (480). (480)

a.

a na ci addama-jje ta nono 3SgS Neg be human Top it-is mere a na ci jinni moo nono but 3SgS Neg be djinn also it-is 'It (=dwarf) isn't a human, but it isn't a djinn (=genie) either.' b. a si goy, [a na ci tubaabu] moo 3SgS ImpfNeg work, [3SgS Neg be white] also 'He doesn't work, nor is he a white man (i.e., rich).' c. a na ci tubaabu, [a si goy] moo 3SgS Neg be white, [3SgS ImpfNeg work] also 'He isn't a white, nor does he work (=have a job).'

9.3 Operators and scope

261

(480b) and (480c) are simply inversions of each other. In both cases, moo clearly has wide scope over the second clause. In (480a), whose second clause is similar to that of (480b) but which includes identificational quasi-verb nono at the end following moo, one might argue that moo is locally attached lojinni 'djinn'. However, in (480a) as in (480b), moo has logical scope over the whole second clause including its negation ('also is not1 rather than 'is not also'). Informants did not accept a variation on the negated second clause of (480a) with final #... nono moo instead of ... moo nono, though ... nono moo is occasionally attested in positive clauses. The sense 'not only' is generally expressed by means of higher-level negation (§9.3.2), with nin or daa in the lower clause (481). (481)

a na ci [dee foo daa na ay_^ nin hari-futu] 3SgS Negbe [time one Emph Foe ISgS drink water-evil] 'It is not only once [focus] that I drank alcoholic beverages.'

This example also illustrates another point, namely, that higher-level negation, plus focalization in the embedded clause, is necessary to focus the negation on a particular constituent.

9.3.6 Quantification over possessed nouns Numerals are compatible with possessed nouns. The sense may be partitive ('two of my hoes'), as in (482a), or totalizing ('my two hoes'), as in (482b). The Def morpheme is generally omitted in the former sense, generally present in the latter sense. (482)

a.

yee jow [ay kuumu foo] [ay banda] ISgSImpftake [ISg hoe one] [ISg behind] Ί (will) take one hoe of mine along with me.' b. a mee hinka di 3Sg mouth two Def 'its (=knife's) two ends'

We can bring out the semantic difference by bracketing the NPs in (482a) and (482b) differentially, as in (483a-b), which disregard the Def morpheme. (483a) has more semantic structure than this simple bracketing device brings out, since the inner portion ay kuumu 'my hoe' must be understood as potentially denoting the set of hoes owned by the speaker, from which foo selects just one. (483)

a. b.

[[ay kuumu] foo] [a [mee hiqka]]

262 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics 9.4 Overview of complement clause types Complement clauses can be divided into three basic classes based on the type of preverbal MAN marking involved, as indicated schematically in (484). (484)

clause type indicative subjunctive infinitival VP

subject NP? V V no

MAN morphemes Impf or zero (=perfective) Subju ma or zero (Indicative) (none)

Indicative complement clauses are identical in form to main clauses, except that some of the former begin with a 'that* complementizer. So the indicative complements permit Impf o ~ go, and the absence of MAN morphemes is interpreted as (positive) perfective. Subjunctive clauses have a special Subju morpheme ma and lack aspect marking. Both indicative and subjunctive complement clauses may be internally negated. Infinitival VPs are sharply different from these two types. They lack a subject NP and the major MAN markers Impf, Subju, and Neg (though they do permit Future fa). Instead, they normally begin with a complementizer ka which we label Inf[initive]. This ka should not be confused with kaa 'that...' One could argue whether or not ka occupies the syntactic position filled in finite clauses by MAN morphemes, or whether it is a true complementizer, but there is no clear empirical basis for making the judgement. Examples of the three types are given in (485), omitting complementizers. "Perf" represents the unmarked perfective. (485) a.

b. c.

type example gloss indicative (Perf) yer guna gi '... we saw them' indicative (Impf) yer o guna gi '... we see them' indicative (PerfNeg) yer na guna gi '... we didn't see them' indicative (Impf Neg) yer si guna gi '... we don't see them' subjunctive yer ma guna gi '... we may see them' subjunctive (Neg) yer ma si guna gi '...we may not see them' infinitival VP ka guna gi '... to see them'

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

263

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses 9.5.1 Conditionals (nda ..., wala ...) Conditional constructions consist of an antecedent ('if ...') and a consequent ('then ...')· In KCh, the consequent is usually an ordinary main clause, while the antecedent is marked by an initial nda ... 'if ...'. nda is also used in instrumental-comitative phrases ('with, by means of, together with') before NPs, and can be used to conjoin two NPs (§5.11). We return to the connections among these uses of nda below. Near the end of this section we cover counterfactuals with nda a gar ... , and emphatic 'even if...' conditionals with wala ... instead of nda .... For 'unless ...', see §8.5.3. Antecedents, which consist of one or more clauses, are frequently terminated by one of several morphemes that elsewhere have quantificational or discourse-functional uses, but here function mainly to mark the right edge of the antecedent. Similar rightedge markers occur in other kinds of background clauses. In the case of conditional antecedents, the most common right-edge marker is kul 'all' (usually without Absolute prefix); others include Emph dee, nin Only', and moo 'also'. For discussion and examples of right-edge markers, see §9.5.10. Conditionals in KCh have a number of notable properties, some quite different from those of English counterparts. These properties can be summarized as follows: a) an antecedent bound by a single nda may consist of one or more than one clause; b) the right edge of the antecedent is optionally marked by a particle; c) the antecedent of a single consequent may be complex, consisting of two or more segments, parallel or hierarchically nested, each beginning with its own nda; d) the consequent optionally begins with a 'then ...' expression; e) there is usually an aspectual difference, perfective being common (though not obligatory) in the antecedent or at least its initial clause, imperfective being regular in the consequent; f) the antecedent can be translated either as 'when ...' or 'if ...' depending on context; g) counterfactuals are simply a special subtype of the basic conditional construction; h) a topical constituent often precedes the antecedent. Points (a), (b), (d), and (e) are functionally interrelated. Given a sequence of nda followed by three clauses $! S2 S3..., (a) warns us that the semantically crucial break between antecedent and consequent might be after S,, S2, or even a later clause. Features (b), (d), and (e), though each arguably has some independent semantic motivation, are useful in helping listeners locate this break. For example, nda S,.Perf S2.Perf saa di S3_lmpf... would ordinarily be interpreted as having S, and S2 in the antecedent, S3 in the consequent, the clues being the perfective-imperfective divide and saa di 'then'. We would make the same call if, instead of saa di marking the beginning (left edge) of the consequent, we had kul as a right-edge marker for the antecedent, as in nda Sl.Pt^S2.pttf kul, S3.lmpf .... (486) is a typical, simple conditional construction (A = antecedent; C = consequent).

264 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

(486)

A

C

nda a kaa kul, if 3SgS come all, ijga ta o hongu... 3SgF fop Impf think ... '(A) When it (=animal) came, (C) it thought....'

The context was an imagined recurrent scene involving animals in the distant past, so 'when ...' is a more felicitous gloss than 'if...' in this instance. Note that kul at the end of the antecedent is untranslated and functions as a right-edge marker. Consider now the more complex antecedent in (487). (487)

Al nda [[a kaaree ga yene] if [[3SgS square 3SgO ISgDat] [a tiisa ga yene ka ben]], [3SgS prepare 3SgO ISgDat Inf end]], A2 nda [yer din fondo] if 1P1S take road C yee bar a se... ISgSImpf say 3Sg Dat ... '(Al) When he has cut it (=stone) into blocks for me, and has finished making it for me, (A2) when we hit the road, (C) I will tell him (to ...).'

Here we have a two-clause antecedent segment Al followed by a single-clause antecedent segment A2, which leads into the consequent C. A2 is the direct antecedent, temporally and causally, while Al describes the more general situational background, but there is no formal difference between the two antecedent types. Note that the perfective-imperfective break is the crucial clue that the transition from antecedent to consequent has occurred, there being no overt marker of edges in this instance. Consider now (488). (488)

— albarka beer goo^ [a ra], kaa strength big be 3Sg Loc, Rel A nda [ma na ci_^ assajaa ma na δί har, if [2SgS Neg be hero 2SgS Neg be man, kaa no-o bey yenje, no-o mey moo Rel 2SgS-Impf know fighting, 2SgS-Impf have also sirri yo kaa no-o hin^ ka kamba [a se]], secret PI Rel 2SgS-Impf can" Inf hold [3Sg Dat], C ni si hin^ ga 2SgS ImpfNeg master 3SgO 'There is a great strength^ in it (=dwarf)y whichx, (A) if [you aren't a hero, (and) you aren't a man who [is experienced in fighting (or) have secrets that you can hold (in store) for ity]], (C) you can't overcome it,.'

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

265

Here the entire conditional (A plus C) functions as a relative clause with head NP albarka beer 'great strength'. There is some ambiguity as to whether the 3Sg of Dat a se at the end of A, and of 3SgO ga at the end of C, refer back to 'dwarf (as I believe) or to 'strength' (i.e., of the dwarf). In any event, the antecedent contains several clauses; its structure may be schematically represented as 'you are not X, (that is to say) you are not a Y who [[knows ...] or [has secrets which [... ]]].' Now look at (489). (489)

— [boro foo yo] goo dooti [person one PI] be there AI nda i kaa [n doo], walafa koy di] £i yow, if 3P1S come[2Sg at], or [3Sg boss DefJ be stranger, A2 nda η baa ma hin^, la se], if 2SgS want 2SgSSubju cook" [3Sg Dat], ma rjaa-ndi ga, ma koosu^ a se, 2SgSSubju eat-Caus 3SgO, 2SgSSubju slaughter 3Sg Dat, ma dam a se yaarey sii di kul, 2SgSSubju do 3Sg Dat fine-meal kind Def all, A3 nda ma na tibi a se attey woo, if 2SgS Neg put-on 3Sg Dat tea Dem, C a-kul go kaa [a ga] yaada AbsolSg-all Impf become [3Sg by] useless 'There are some people there, (Al) when they come (=drop in) at your home, or (if) the guy is an out-of-town guest, (A2) if you want to cook for him, to feed him, to slaughter (an animal) for him, to set any kind of festive meal down for him, (A3) if you haven't put on that tea for him, (C) the whole thing (=cooking) will be useless to him (=guest).'

The basic point is that some guests will be offended if tea is not served to them; even a sumptuous repast will not make up for the lack of tea. One could argue that the initial existential, which introduces a set of discourse referents, contains a covert relativizer ('there are some people there who ...'), in which case the entire conditional construction functions as a relative clause as in (488), but we leave this aside here. The conditional itself consists of a string of antecedents (AI, A2, A3) and a single, terse consequent (C). Al is internally complex, containing the disjunction of two clauses linked by wala Or', both clauses being bound by a single nda. A2, which elaborates on the situation inherited from Al, is also syntactically complex—but only because it has several subjunctive clauses serving as complements of baa 'want'. With Al and A2 having presented the background, A3 presents the centrally important condition (tea is not made for the guest) which directly causes C (the guest is dissatisfied). One could gloss nda in Al or A2 either 'if...' or 'when ...', but only 'if ...' is appropriate for A3. a-kul 'all, the whole thing' in C is anaphoric to the cooking activities in A2 and is not an antecedent right-edge marker. In (490), the translation 'when ..." as opposed to 'if...' is clearly called for in the free translation. Both antecedents, Al and A2, repeat previously asserted material.

266 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (490)

— joori, no-o dam ga_^ [a ra], swill, 2SgS-Impf put 3SgO [3Sg Loc] — hal a ma dam [a ra] [jirbi hinja], until 3SgS Subju do [3Sg Loc] [day three] Al nda^ a dam a ra jirbi hinja, if ~ 3SgS do 3Sg Loc day three mun Cl no-o _ 9a> 2SgS-Impf pouT 3SgO — saa di no-o dam [a ra] ban, time Def 2SgS-Impf put [3Sg Loc] water A2 nda n dam [a ra] hari, if 2SgS put [3Sg Loc] water C2 a-a yey hainl no-o horjgu kaa 3SgS-Impf be-cold until 2SgS-Impf think that [[[tubaabo di yd] wane] Hisa di] nono [[[white-man Def PI] Poss] making Def] it-is 'Swill (grain residue mixed with water), you(Sg) put it (=swill) in it (=waterbag), until it (=swill) has spent three days in it; (Al) when it has spent three days in it, (Cl) you pour it (out); then you put water in it; (A2) when you have put water in it, (C2) it gets so cold you would think it was the making of white men.'

In both antecedents in (490), the point is not the hypothetical status of the denoted eventuality, rather the sequential relationship between antecedent and consequent eventualities. The fact that nda clauses may denote eventualities whose truth is not seriously in doubt distinguishes nda from English if, and readers should appreciate that we use the term "conditional construction" loosely. The focus on sequencing (often accompanied by causality) accounts for the very strong tendency for the antecedent to be in perfective aspect and for the consequent to be in imperfective aspect, in the fashion of juxtaposed "past" and "future" sentences. Counterfactual conditionals ('if he had seen me, he would have killed me') have the same basic structure as future-oriented hypothetical conditionals. The consequent is a simple main clause, normally in imperfective aspect, and is indistinguishable in form from the consequent of a hypothetical conditional. The antecedent clause likewise follows the usual pattern, beginning with nda ... and continuing with a perfective indicative clause, but in a counterfactual this clause consists of an invariant a gar 'it happened (that)' plus an embedded indicative complement clause carrying the prepositional substance, either imperfective (49la) or perfective (49Ib) as semantically appropriate. For a gar in other contexts, see §6.1.1 (and cf. §9.5.9). (491)

a.

A C

nda a gar [yee ta hambur], if 3SgS happen [ISgSImpf Put fear], ay si here ka yee moo ISgS ImpfNeg turn Inf return also '(A) If I had been afraid, (C) I would not have turned to go back.'

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses b.

A C

267

n da a gar [baana na kar bii], if 3SgS happen [rain Neg strike yesterday], yer ο bun [nda koron] 1P1S Impf die [with heat] 'If it hadn't rained yesterday, we would have died of heat.'

Perfective aspect is normal in the first clause of the antecedent, but this is not a rule, and there are a few textual examples with nda 'if plus imperfective clause (492). (492)

— saa di ay bey kaa woo ta, time Def ISg know that Dem Top A nda haya kul ο δι tatjgan, wala sika wala haya-jje, if thing all Impf be lie, or doubt or whatchamacallit C woo ta di oiimi Dem Top be truth kaa ay rjga guna ay gga dam ga that ISg SFoc see ISg SFoc do 3SgO 'So, I knew that this (person), (A) (even) if everything (else) is a lie, or is unreliable, or whatever, (C) this is the truth, that it was I who saw (him) and it was I who did it.'

Here the "antecedent" operates at the pragmatic level: 'If there is only one true statement in the world, it is that I saw him.' There is no sequential or causal connection between antecedent and consequent; indeed, the consequent is true only in spite of the antecedent. Since the antecedent is a sweeping generalization not restricted to a finite temporal interval, it is appropriately put in the imperfective aspect. Another type of pragmatic use is illustrated in (493).

(493)

— maa se what? Dat A nda ay na guna atakurmi moo if ISgS Neg see Atakurmi also C ay guna jinni ISgS see djinn 'Because, although I didn't see Atakurmi (=dwarf) for its part, I did see a djinn (=genie).'

Here the 'if is concessive ('while admittedly ...' = 'although ...'). The interviewer had asked the speaker whether he had laid eyes on the elf-like dwarf Atakurmi, and having seen a djinn was second-best. In addition to the usual conditionals in nda ... , an emphatic type translatable as 'even if ..." (= 'no matter if ...', 'regardless of whether ...') with initial wala ... is available, wala is the basic disjunctive particle ('or', 'whether') with a following NP (§5.11.4) or sentence (§9.5.4), and has a similar emphatic use 'even ...' before NPs (§8.5.9). Examples of the emphatic conditional are in (494).

268 (494)

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics a.

b.

ni Hnji ban ni si hin ka goy 2SgS muscle die 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf work [wala π duu haya gaa], [even 2SgS get thing indeed], ni si hin^ ka goy koyne 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf work again 'Your(Sg) muscles are exhausted, you can't work even if you have gotten something (=a job), you can't work further.' ma si hoqgu [wala no-o guna ga], 2SgSSubju Neg think [even 2SgS-Impf see 3SgO], a goo ijgu gaa-koon 3Sg be 3ReflSg naked 'You shouldn't think that, even if you do see it (=dwarf), it'll be naked.'

Although (494b) has imperfective aspect after wala, where a typical nda antecedent would have perfective aspect, follow-up elicitation did not bring out any systematic aspectual differences between the two, perfective being typical of antecedents with wala as well as nda. Moreover, in elicitation, the combination wala nda ... 'even if ..." was common. We might therefore analyse simple wala ... in (494a-b) as a simplification of wala nda. Disjunctive 'whether..., or...' antecedents can be expressed as nda ... , wala ... , as in (495). This use of wala ... does not seem to be closely related semantically to its use in the sense 'even if...' seen in (494). (495)

nda ni ci woy wala ni ci har if 2SgS be woman or 2SgS be man 'whether you are a woman or (you are) a man,...'

These examples suffice to illustrate the kinds of conditional constructions that we find in the texts. It remains, however, to explain why nda is used in antecedents, recalling that nda is also used as an Instr-Comit preposition before an NP, and as a conjunction 'and' between NPs (§5.11). The gloss 'and' is misleading, since nda is not used to conjoin simple sentences or VPs, and since even between NPs it is more asymmetrical than is English and. So the gloss 'with', in either instrumental or comitative (associative) sense, best captures the use of nda with NPs. One can now imagine an extension of the sense 'with' to conditional antecedents, especially if temporal sequencing and causality are more strongly emphasized than hypothetical modal value: 'with the murderer (being) safely put behind bars, the citizenry breathed a collective sigh of relief.' Compare also the Shakespearean use of and as 'if. The suggestion that nda 'if is a preposition would also mesh with the use of kul 'all' (or a DF morpheme) as a right-edge marker at the end of the antecedent clause, since the frame nda X kul can also be used with X = NP in the sense 'with all (of) X'. There are some syntactic difficulties in applying this analysis to KCh. Since the material following nda has the form of a main clause, a formal analysis of conditional antecedents as prepositional phrases would presumably require positing a

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

269

phonologically unrealized nominalizer. But this would leave unexplained the fact that nda plus main-like clause does not occur postverbally as an instrumental-comitative phrase. Although a formal equation of conditional antecedent nda and postverbal preposition nda is dubious, there is one piece of evidence for a PP-like status for conditional antecedents. This is that, admittedly rarely, such an antecedent can serve as (nonsubject) focus, followed by Focus morpheme na, as in (496).

[nda n mey ga daa] na no-o dam ga [if 2SgS have 3SgO Emph] Foe 2SgS-Impf do 3SgO 'It's [(only) in case you have it] [focus] that you (can) do it.'

(496)

9.5.2 Juxtaposed clauses ('and', 'but', Or', etc.) Since there is no basic 'and' conjunction linking sentences, clauses denoting linked events are often simply juxtaposed, as in (497a-b). (497)

a.

b.

yee jum-di doodi yee goy ISgSImpf descend-Caus there ISgSImpf work Ί take (donkeys) down there and I work.' ay kaa ay kottu [[feeji di yo] maasu di] ISgScome ISgS tear [[sheep Def PI] middle Def] Ί came and I crossed through the middle of the sheep.'

Examples like these with identical subject NPs can also be expressed by putting the second VP in the infinitive form with ka (Ί take the donkeys down there to work,' etc.). Simple juxtaposition and the infinitive construction differ slightly in semantic nuances; for the infinitives see §9.7. The absence of an overt 'and' conjunction with sentences causes potential problems in identifying the right boundary of a string of clauses under the scope of a modal operator such as nda 'if or a quotative or volitional verb, as in (498). (498)

a.

nda [[yer gar ga] [yer taar ga] if [[1P1S find 3SgO] [1P1S touch 3SgO] [yer gar a ci alhoor]], yer o jow kuumu... [1P1S find 3SgS be limestone]],!PIS Impf take hoe ... 'When we have found it, we have touched it, (and) we have found that it is limestone, (then) we take a hoe ...' b. yee bar a se [[a ma koy kate ISgSImpf say 3Sg Dat [[3SgS Subju go bring farka di yo], [a ma maan^ndi-kate gi], donkey Def PI], [3SgS Subju approach-Caus-Centrip3PlO], [a ma tibi gi yene]] [3SgS Subju put-on 3P1O ISgDat]] Ί tell him to go bring the donkeys, bring them near, (and) saddle them for me.'

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9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

As noted above, the boundary between antecedent and consequent can usually be identified by observing an aspectual shift or a left- or right-edge marker; see also §9.5.10. The aspectual shift to imperfective identifies the onset of the consequent in (498a). In (498b), the issue is where die reported speech embedded under 'say* ends and the regular narrative resumes. Since all three clauses following 'say' are subjunctive, we conclude that they are conjoined to form a single embedded jussive complement. Sentences conjoined without an overt conjunction may also relate to each other logically in ways other than simple summation or temporal sequencing. In (499) we give examples requiring translations with 'but' (499a-b) and 'whereas' (499c). In (500) optimal translations are with Or' (500a), 'whedier ... , or ...' (500b), and 'nor' (500c). (499)

a.

b.

c.

(500)

a.

b.

c.

[n dira ka kar guusu] [ma na duu haya] [2SgS walk Inf hit hole] [2SgS Neg get thing] 'You(Sg) have hiked to dig a (limestone) quarry, but you didn't get anything.' no-o baa alhoor kaa hJsa [ni huu di] 2SgS-Impf want limestone Rel fix [2Sg home DefJ [baana ma si hasara ga] [rain Subju Neg ruin 3SgO] [ni si mey [a hin-ey]] [2SgS ImpfNeg have [3Sg power]] 'You(Sg) want limestone that will fix your house so rain won't damage it, but you don't have the means of (buying) it.' [a wan dij o serre nin, [3Sg Poss Def] Impf be-straight only, [ni wan di] si serre [2Sg Poss DefJ ImpfNeg be-straight 'It's only that his (house) is straight, whereas yours isn't straight.' yee jum-di [ay farka di yo], ISgSImpf descend-Caus [ISg donkey Def PI], [ije keyna dij ο jum-di ga yene [child small DefJ Impf descend-Caus 3SgO ISgDat Ί take my donkeys down, or the boy takes it (=donkeys) down for me.' a-a kar, [nda a baa a ma haw] 3SgS-Impf hit, [if 3SgS want 3SgS Subju be-tied] [nda a baa a ma feer] [if 3SgS want 3SgS Subju be-open] 'It (=rain)x will hit, whether he (=magician) wants itx to be bottled up or he wants it, to be released.' [qgu ta] na bar 'a na ci boro ποπό', [LogoSg Top] Neg say '3SgS Neg be person it-is', qgu na har 'boro nono' LogoSgS Neg say 'person it-is* '(Hex thought:) hex did not say that it was not a human, nor did hex say that it was a human.'

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

271

The absence of overt conjunctions or logical operators in these examples can be attributed to the obviousness of the logical relationships. In (499a-b), the final clause denotes an unfortunate situation that is clearly in an adverse relationship to the wishes and efforts described by the preceding clause(s). In (499c) and (500b-c), the relevant juxtaposed clauses directly contrast ('straight, not straight', 'be bottled up, be released', 'not be human, be human'), and in (500d) the two clauses denote functionally equivalent alternatives. That juxtaposed clauses can function as syntactic units, in spite of their lack of special formal interactions (e.g. cross-clause reflexive binding), is suggested by extraction phenomena. See discussion of (502) in the following section. For all of the logical relationships illustrated in (499-500), speakers may also use an overt conjunction or other logical operator, and when the relationship between the clauses is less obvious than in those examples such a morpheme is called for (see §9.5.4). Juxtaposed clauses involving temporal relationships ('while', 'after', 'before', etc.) are described in the next section.

9.5.3 Juxtaposed clauses in adverbial function ('while', 'without') When two clauses are juxtaposed, the second sometimes functions as a temporal adverbial clause translatable as 'while' (if positive) or 'without' (if negative), as in (501). 'While' is to be taken in its temporal (= 'during') rather than adversative sense (= 'whereas'). Note that 'without knowing' is logically equivalent to 'while not knowing', so the 'while' is consistent. (501)

a.

b.

ammaa [saa di kaa] a kar, but [time Def Rel] 3SgS hit, [a kar] [hew sii^ [a ra]] [3SgS hit] [wind be^not [3Sg Loc]] 'But when it (=rain) struck, it struck while there was no wind.' [no-o bisa [a ga]] [ni si bey] [2SgS-Impf pass [3Sg by]] [2SgS ImpfNeg know] 'You'll pass by it without knowing'

This type of construction normally consists of an initial clause denoting a foregrounded event, followed by a brief second clause denoting a temporally extended state or process that is not caused by the first event. The best way to make sense of such a combination is to infer that the second clause denotes a background situation whose temporal interval contains that of the event denoted by the first clause. The second clause is most often in imperfective aspect. It can, however, be in the unmarked perfective aspect, for example when this clause is negated, as in (648a-b) in §10.2.4. There is no overt morpheme meaning precisely 'while ...'. Both saa di kaa ... 'when ..., (at) the time that...' and nda ... 'if (when) ...' are strongly associated with temporal sequence rather than overlap. The only obvious alternative to (501a), then, is

272

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

to invert the order ("There was no wind; the rain struck'). In the case of 'without', there is an alternative construction involving bilaa 'without' (
yee kaa ta hää ga [wala [addeliil foo ga] ISgSImpf come Inf ask 3SgO [or [reason which? on] [yee sallam [a ga]] [a si tuuri]] [ISgSImpf greet [SSgon]] [3SgS ImpfNeg reply]] was coming to ask him^, for which reason (=why) did hex not respond when I greeted himx.'

Literally, this is '... for which reason [I greeted himx hex did not reply],' both verbs in the embedded question being imperfective. Clearly the WH interrogative has been extracted from 'he did not reply,' while greeted him/ functions as background. The verb jo w can be used as a simple transitive 'take', or a serial verb meaning 'do energetically'; see (594) in §9.7.5. It is rarely attested with a following imperfective indicative clause in the sense 'keep doing (a long time)', as in (503). (503)

i jow i-i dira, hal i 3P1S take 3PlS-Impf walk, until 3P1S 'They walked and walked, until they arrived ...'

too... arrive...

Some other verbs with intrinsically durative sense can be used with a following imperfective indicative clause, as an alternative to the more common serial-verb construction (§9.7.5,7). This applies to hoy 'spend the daytime', hanna 'spend the night', ftndi 'remain', and dooney 'be accustomed, do frequently'. An example is (504). (504)

a-a hoy a-a dira 3SgS-Impf spend-daytime 3SgS-Impf walk 'He spends the middle of the day walking (around).'

The other temporal relationships among clauses involve the notions 'before ...' and 'after ...'. For hal in the sense 'before ...' ('before it dries up, that is when you plant them'), see the end of §9.5.6. 'After ...' ('after he came, we started to talk') can be expressed by beginning the second clause with woo di banda 'after that' (§5.5; 'He came; after that we started to talk').

9.5.4 Clausal disjunctions (wala Or, whether', maa 'either') When two or more clauses are in a disjunctive relationship, the conjunction wala Or' (
9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

273

exclusive or inclusive, as in English. A strictly exclusive reading in a particular example is due to a logical or inferred mutual exclusion (505). (505)

[[wor o dey ga] [a i humbar]] wala [[2P1S Impf buy 3SgO] [3Sg be waterbag]] or [wor ο noo kuuru] [i ma tiisa ga [war se]] [2P1S Impf give skin] [3P1S Subju make 3SgO [2P1 Dat]] 'Do you(Pl) buy it (=goatskin waterbag) when it is (already) a waterbag, or do you give the (goat) skin (to them) for them to make it (waterbag) for you?'

See also (609) in §9.7.8, with several parallel subjunctive clauses. When the two disjuncts function as embedded polar (yes-no) interrogatives under a verb of thinking or speaking ('know', 'find out', 'wonder', 'inquire'), it is usual to put wala before all disjuncts. In this case the best translation is 'whether ..., or ...', as in (506). (506)

bara a ma sii ni ka guna ni must 3SgS Subju test 2SgO Inf see 2SgO wala [n ci bar] wala [ma na ci bar] or [2SgS be man] or [2SgS Neg be man] 'He (=dwarf) will undoubtedly test you(Sg), to look at you, (to see) whether you are a man, or you are not a man.'

If the second disjunct in an embedded polar interrogative is simply the negation of the first, as in (506), one of them may be be omitted, the wala 'whether' on the overt disjunct implying the second. In this case, the overt clause may be either the negative or the positive version. The negative version is actually preferred, as in (507), the literal translation of which is awkward in English. (507)

ay si bey wala [ni si bey ga] ISgS ImpfNeg know or [2SgS ImpfNeg know 3SgO] Ί don't know whether you don't know him.'

A freer English translation: '... whether (or not) you know him.' Normally, two or more disjuncts linked by wala must be of the same syntactic and semantic types (e.g., both are clauses, or both are NPs). However, the same kinds of nominal catch-all expressions used to end an NP disjunction (§5.11.5) may be used in the same function with clausal disjunctions, especially in a negative context, as in (508). (508)

a na ci a-a goro ka hantum 3SgS Neg be 3SgS-Impf sit Inf write wala [woo di taka] or [Dem Def kind] 'It isn't as though he sits and writes, or something like that.'

274 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics One could argue, though, that this represents '... or HE DOES something like that,' with some phonologically unrealized material. The sequence 'either ... , or ...' can also be expressed asymmetrically, with another particle maa (
maa a-a fan wala a-a kur wala— either 3SgS-Impf farm or 3SgS-Impf herd or— 'Either he toils (in the fields), or he herds (animals), or—'

For wala as a polar interrogative marker (yes-no), see §8.2.1.

9.5.5 Adversative conjunctions mere, ammaa, mais 'but' As seen in §9.5.2, when two clauses are in a transparently adversative relationship, they may be simply juxtaposed without an explicit 'but' morpheme. However, three adversative morphemes are available: mere, ammaa, and (French) mais (pronounced [mei]). mere is variable in position. It may occur, like English but and French mais, at the beginning of a clause in an adverse relationship to the preceding clause (510). (510)

a na 6i addama-jje ta nono 3SgS Neg be human Top it-is mere a na ci jinni moo nono but 3SgS Neg be djinn also it-is 'It (=dwarf) isn't a human, but it isn't a djinn (=genie) either.'

mere may precede a proposed topical NP, as in (511), though it logically relates to the following sentence. (511)

bara a ma hin_^ ka mey [lakal kuna] [misa kaa] must 3SgS Subju can Inf have [mind Loc] [manner Rel] qgu^ ο hin^ ka koor ga [nda ga], LogoSgS Impf carT Inf restrain 3SgO [with 3SgO], mere tarkunda yer moijgo [a se] mise kul but elephant 1P1S be-unable [3Sg Dat] manner all kaa yer hin^ ka koor ga nda Rel 1P1S carT Inf restrain 3SgO with 'He (she) must be able to find in his (her) mind a way in which he (she) can control it (any difficult situation); but an elephant, we cannot (find) for it any way in which we can control it.'

In (512a), mere appears to be sandwiched between two repetitions of a topical NP. More generally, as seen in (512b-c), mere may occur at a phrase boundary in the middle of a sentence, in the fashion of English though or however.

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses (512)

a.

b.

c.

275

kuumu mere kuumu fa gaa [saa kul] hoe but hoe Top Emph [time all] a-a boon a ma harjga ni banda 3SgS-Impf be-good 3SgS Subju follow 2Sg after 'But a hoex, speaking of a hoex, it's always good that it, be with you.' ban foo go bar a mere boro foo^ o kaa day one Impf exist but person one Impf come a-a baa ni 3SgS-Impf ask 2SgO 'There will be a day, though, (when) someone will come and will ask you (for it).' bor kaa si bey mere, no-o bisa [a ga]... person Rel ImpfNeg know but, 2SgS-Impf pass [3Sg by] ... '(If you are) someone who doesn't know, however, you'll go right past it ...'

Another particle, ammaa (
(513)

no-o koy hal ma too nin, 2SgS-Impf go until 2SgSSubju arrive only, ammaa ije foo ni si hin_^ ka kow ga but child one 2SgS ImpfNeg can Inf remove 3SgO 'You(Sg)'ll just go so you arrive, but you can't extract a single piece (of stone).' b. saa di kaa na a sinti, a sinti nda hew, time Def Rel 0 3SgS begin, 3SgS begin with wind, ammaa a kokoro di, a kaa labaas but 3Sg last-part Def, 3SgS become fine 'When it (=rainstorm) began, it began with wind; but its latter part, it became fine.' c. ammaa baana fa, boro foo a sii_^ [a kamba] mee but rain Top.personone 3SgS be-not [3Sg hand] Emph 'But as for rainx, it^ isn't in the hands (=control) of any person.'

a.

The remaining morpheme is French mais 'but', pronounced [me:]. Aside from accidental homonymy (mee 'mouth'), there is a more significant overlap with clausefinal Emph mee, used chiefly after imperatives (§8.5.7), and for native speakers the two mee particles are possibly thought of as the same morpheme. I transcribe mais rather than mee when the particle expresses a semantically adversarial relationship between two clauses (Ά, but B'). In this usage, mais is generally the onset of the B clause, as in (514a). In (514b), the particle is prosodically the termination of the A clause, where one usually finds Emph mee rather than mais, but the sense points to 'but'. Apparently the speaker began a 'but' clause with mais and then restarted this clause with ammaa in order to edit out the half-assimilated French borrowing.

276 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (514)

a.

b.

πο-o

hin^

ka

cen

ga

[nda

ga]

2SgS-Impf can" Inf build 3SgO [with 3SgO] [musoo di daa] mais a si jafa [this-way Def Emph] but 3SgS ImpfNeg be-shaped 'You(Sg) can build it (wall) with it (irregular limestone chunks) like that, but it (wall) isn't (properly) shaped.' yerkoy dam sabab mais—, ammaa a ma gar moo... God put reason but—, but 3SgS Subju find also ... 'God has established a reason, but—, but it must be the case moreover that...'

ammaa may be combined with either mats or mere. (514b) shows mais and ammaa, separated by a hesitation pause. We get ammaa mere in (515). (515)

musoo di kaa_^ i oindi nda daa na like-this Def Ref 3P1S remain with Emph Foe yer o kamba gi nda,

1P1S Impf grasp 3P1O with, ammaa mere atakurmi woo daa, but but A Dem Emph boro foo na hin^ ka mey [a ra] fahaam-ey

foo

person one Neg can Inf have [3Sg Loc] understanding one 'It is in the very manner in which they remain (=are) by which we grasp them; but this Atakurmi (=dwarf)x indeed, nobody has been able to get any understanding of it,.'

9.5.6 jaa 'since' and hal 'until, before' The two opposing particles jaa 'since, from (time), as early as, starting at' and hal 'until, so that, all the way to' have been described in §5.9.8 in their usage as quasiprepositions with following NP. More commonly, however, they function as clauseinitial subordinating conjunctions. The two are logically complementary, denoting the beginning and endpoint, respectively, of a time interval. In this section we discuss combinations of Jaa or hal with indicative clauses. 'Since' is a good all-purpose gloss for jaa, which has both temporal ('from the time that...') and causal ('because ...') readings. In my texts, causal examples seem a little more frequent than temporal examples, though some cases straddle the distinction. For examples of the causal reading, see the following section. Examples involving a basically temporal sense are in (516). In (516d), we can translate jaa moreyda as 'by now', emphasizing that the situation in question has already begun. In past contexts, Jaa likewise emphasizes how early an eventuality occurred or began, as in (516a-c); in some of these cases a gloss including 'back (then)' or 'even (then)' may catch the right nuance.

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses (516)

277

a.

nda n kumna ga moreyda, no-o nan if 2SgS gather 3SgO now, 2SgS-Impf leave a ma koo, wala jaa^ a oi 3SgS Subju be-dry, or since 3SgS be [i-tey-nte di] nono, no-o dam ga haya ra [Absol-wet-Partpl DefJ it-is, 2SgS-Impf put 3SgO thing Loc wala musa foo na no-o dam a sei or manner which?Foc 2SgS-Impf do 3Sg Dat? 'When you(Sg) gather it (=pile of melon seeds), do you let it dry off, or (even) back when it is in (its) wet state do you(Sg) put it in something, or what do you do to it?' b. jaa yenaa [yer baaliki di yo] kaa cindi ka bara, since before [1P1 adult-man Def PI] Rel remain Inf exist, bor kul kaa na δι albanna, nda n koy, person all Rel Neg be mason, if 2SgS go, nda ma na derey fondo, if 2SgS Neg lose road, nda η koy η si hin_^ ka goy if 2SgS go 2SgS ImpfNeg can" Inf work 'Back in the past, our adult men (=ancestors) who used to exist, (if you were) anyone who was not an (authorized) mason, if you went (to look for limestone), (even) if you didn't lose your way, if you went, you couldn't (weren't allowed to) work.' c. nda haya nono kaa no-o bey jaa [saa di] if thing it-is Rel 2SgS-Impf know since [time Def] na η baa ka hirow [i ra], if 2SgS want Inf enter [3P1 Loc], no-o koy no-o hirow [kondey di ra] 2SgS-Impf go 2SgS-Impf enter [guild Def Loc] 'If it is something that you(Sg) know, from then on, if you are about to go in with them (masons), you will go and you will join in the guild.' d. wallaahi bara [woo ye] ci haya kaa yer gey-nda, by-God must [Dem PI] be thing Rel 1P1S endure-with, jaa moreyda, [boro di yo] too nan_^ kaa kuna since now, [person Def PI] arrive place Rel Loc tumbutu ta nda him dam kul i-i bar Timbuktu Top if thunder be-done all 3PlS-Impf say 'woo go ta kaa hew1 'Dem Impf Put become wind' 'By God, these (rainstorms) are something which we have gone a long time without; by now, the people have reached the point in which, concerning Timbuktu, when thunder claps, they say, "this will become wind (=duststorm).'"

Leaving aside its quasi-prepositional use with a following NP, hal occurs in two distinct constructions involving a following clause. We are here concerned with the

278

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

type with indicative clause, which denotes a temporal endpoint or logical outcome. For the much more common purposive type with a following subjunctive clause, see §9.6.4. Examples of hal with indicative complement are in (517). (517)

a.

b.

no-o koy no-o taasi ga no-o guna ga 2SgS-Impfgo 2SgS-Impf seek 3SgO 2SgS-Impf see 3SgO moo hal no-o hoqgu alhoor ποπό also until 2SgS-Impf believe limestone it-is 'You(Sg) go and you look for it (=limestone); you look at it moreover, until you think it's (solid) limestone.' woo di a nin hal a hasara Dem be 3SgS ripen until 3SgS be-ruined 'That is, it (=crumbly limestone) rotted until it was ruined.'

When hal precedes a clause expressing an incipient or imminent activity, the best gloss is 'before ..." or 'by the time that ...'. That is, the hal clause functions as as a background clause, as in (518). (518)

a.

b.

saa kaa hari a mun, hal a kaa ta time Rel water 3SgS be-poured, until 3SgS come Inf koo, saa di na no-o fan ga dry, time Def Foe 2SgS-Impf farm 3SgO 'When the waterx, it, has poured in (inundating the plains), before itx has evaporated away, it is then that you(Sg) will grow it (=millet).' i-i jisi ga [war se] 3PlS-Impfput 3SgO [2P1 Dat]

hal

wor

o

kaa

ta

foo

gi,

until 2P1S Impf come Inf greet 3P1O, hal wor ο ta foo gi kul until 2P1S Impf Fut greet 3P1O all i-i dam war se albarka nda woo di 3PlS-Impfdo 2P1 Dat thanks with Dem Def 'They set it (=food) down for you(Pl) before you come to greet them; by the time you greet them, they express their gratitude to you for that (=volunteer work).' In (518a), the first two clauses jointly define a brief temporal interval at the peak of seasonal flooding, the first clause specifying the interval's beginning (water fills the floodplains), the second specifying its ending (water level drops as water evaporates). This interval is picked up by saa di 'then' in the third clause. In the second clause of (518a), hal precedes a serial-verb combination with kaa ta ... 'come and ...', here with inchoative or future sense (cf. English be going to ...). This combines with hal to give a translation 'before ...'. In (518b) there are two parts, each with a hal clause serving as background to a foregrounded event clause. The first hal clause has the same kaa ta ... combination as in (518a). The second hal clause has preverbal Fut marker ta.

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

279

Another way to express the sense 'before ..." is to juxtapose two clauses, of which the second is negative in form and functions as a 'while* adverbial clause (Ί was working [while] you were not [yet] up' = Ί was working before you got up'). A somewhat complex example of this general type is (519), where both parts are subordinated to gar 'be found (that...), happen (that...)'. (519)

a-a gar ay 3SgS-Impf find ISgS

fatta, exit,

woo

rjgi

bine^ o

gar

ta

na

tun

Dem Top" Impf find 3P1F Top Neg arise 'It happens that I've (already) left, while they have not (yet) arisen.' (520) shows jaa and hal clauses defining the start and the end of an interval. (520)

jaa Jeff kaa hal a koy, since J come until 3SgS go, hari-futu daa na a-a ffin water-bad Emph Foe 3SgS-Impf drink 'From the time Jeff came until he left, booze is all he drank.'

Here jaa and hal are parallel. This should be distinguished from superficially similar sequences involving jaa in the causal sense 'because ...', as in (521). In this example, the hal clause happens to be embedded within the 'because* complex. (521)

yee jow ay kuumu foo ay banda, jaa yee ISgSImpf take ISg hoe one ISg behind, since ISgSImpf dooney ka dira, hal ye guna boosu be-accustomed Inf walk, until ISgSSubju see gravel Ί take one of my hoes with me, since I am used to walking until I see (limestone) gravel.'

For a speaker from a village near Timbuktu, I recorded jaa plus imperfective VP in a narrative context emphasizing prolongation of a backgrounded activity. Neighboring KS has a very common construction of this type with the cognate morpheme zaa, but the construction did not occur in my Timbuktu texts. The sequence of jaa plus VP has a singsong tonal contour and is repeated for emphasis, setting up a new, foregrounded event (522). (522)

ay aindi [jaa yee goro yee batu ISgSstay [since ISgSImpf sit ISgS await [jaa yee goro yee batu ga],

[since ISgSImpf sit hal

woyna koron

ga] 3SgO]

ISgSImpf await 3SgO], a

na

kaa

until sun get-hot 3SgS Neg come Ί stayed, I sat (there) waiting for him, I sat (there) waiting for him, until the sun got hot (=until mid-day), (but) he didn't come.'

280

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

9.5.7 'Because' clauses Among younger speakers, French parce que, pronounced [paska], is fairly common as a clause-initial 'because' particle. One also hears puisque, again from French. Both occur widely in West African languages. The native expressions arejaa ... 'since ...' (see the preceding section for this particle's temporal uses), hay di kaa se (literally 'the thing due to which ...'), and maa se (literally 'why?'), often extended as jaa maa se. Clause-initial bara ... with following indicative clause means 'because (since) ...', though this morpheme also has several other uses (or homophones). There is considerable interspeaker variation as to the preferred 'because ...' form. Syntactically, all 'because' expressions (native and French) are clause-initial, except that they may precede a proposed topical constituent if present. They ate followed by a complete indicative sentence. The native forms are exemplified below, with two examples of jaa (523a-b) followed by two of maa se (523c-d). The point of (523a) is that the smiths would not be able to stand the heat of the forge in the already sweltering daytime. (523)

a.

garaasa di yo Siji here na^ i-i kar ga blacksmithDef PI night Approx Foe 3PlS-Impf hit 3SgO ka bow, jaa a wane gaabi di^ o tiisa Inf be-much, since 3Sg Poss force Def Impf be-much ka bow a koron di^ ο bow Inf be-big 3Sg heat Def Impf be-big 'The blacksmiths, it's at night [focus] that they strike it (=metal)]l, since its, strength is very great, (and so) itsx heat is great.' b. nda a kam dee_^ a-a baa if 3SgS fall Emph 3SgS-Impf be-broken jaa a-a tfisa ka tin since 3SgS-Impf be-much Inf be-heavy 'When it (=beast) falls (=into a pit trap), it (=it's bones) will break, because it's very heavy.' c. [[a wane] albarka di jaatir] ο bow [[3Sg Poss] force Def self] Impf be-big [maa se] a-a j -j [what? Dat] 3SgS-Impf Rdp-be-oily 'It's (=melon seeds') very value is great, because it is oily.' d. ay horjgu a go Si sanda allaa Seytaan taka, ISgS think 3SgS Impf be like like devil kind [maa se] a na ci [addama-jje ta nono] [what? Dat]3SgS Neg be [human Top it-is] Ί think it (=dwarf) is like a kind of devil, because it's not a human.'

'Because' forms may have scope over fairly complex following constructions, including those beginning with conditionals or other background material, as in (524).

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses (524)

a.

a-a soo, 3SgS-Impf waste-away, hay kaa si qua thing Rel ImpfNeg eat

jaa since a 3SgS

bor kaa si ijaa, person Rel ImpfNeg eat, si nin ban, ImpfNeg drink water,

man

koy

koynel,

na a-a

281

where? Foe 3SgS-Impf go again?, yekuwa foo si cindi [a ra] strength one ImpfNeg remain [3Sg Loc] 'He (=sick person) wastes away, because one who doesn't eat— anyone who doesn't eat and doesn't drink water, where will he go further? There's no strength left in him.' b. jaa tjga ta moo har^terey di since 3SgF Top also man-hood Def a-a mey [a ra] addeliil 3SgS-Impf have [3Sg Loc] cause 'Because it (=dwarf) too, manhood has a cause (importance) to him.' c. jaa nda baana kar, ganji-ije di yo_^ o nin since if rain hit, forest-child Def PI Impf drink 'Because, if rain falls, the wild animals will drink.'

9.5.8 'That' complements (kaa,kala,kaa na) kaa 'that ...' is used as a complementizer after certain matrix verbs denoting mental activity. (For the variants kaa na and kala, see below.) At the end of this section we mention some cases where kaa occurs without specific licensing from a matrix verb. One obvious issue is whether this kaa is the same morpheme as Relative kaa (§8.2). fcaa is fairly common, but optional, after bar 'say'. For examples involving indicative complements (reported assertion), see §10.1.1-4. When /iaris followed by a subjunctive clause in jussive function (reported imperative, §9.6.3), kaa is again optionally present. In the present section we will focus on indicative kaa complements with other verbs. Such a complement is especially common after the verb bey 'know'. Other verbs attested with indicative kaa complements are maafa 'feel, perceive', kan-ndi 'plan, decide, determine' (irregular Caus of kani 'lie down'), hoqgu 'believe, reckon, remember', and guna 'see' (in the sense 'determine or infer from perceptual clues' with prepositional complement). Indicative kaa complements are illustrated in (525a-f). The complement has the form of an ordinary main clause in all respects. (525)

a.

b.

no-o bey kaa [woo ci alhoor] 2SgS-Impf know that [Dem be limestone] 'You(Sg) know that this is limestone.' hal ma maata kaa [woyne woo baa ka until 2SgSSubju perceive that [sun Dem want Inf '... so that you(Sg) perceive that the sun is about to set'

kam] fall]

282 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (525, cont.) c. ni kan-^ndi kaa [no-o hima ka koy alhoor] 2SgS determine that [2SgS-Impf should Inf go limestone] 'You(Sg) determine that you ought to go (looking for) limestone.' d no-o hoqgu kaa [tubaabo di yo wane hlsa di nono] 2SgS-Impfthink that [white-man Def PI Poss making Def it-is] 'You(Sg) (will) think it's the making of white men.' e. haya lawal di kaa [no-o hoijgu kaa thing first Def Rel [2SgS-Impf think that [no-o dam a se]] [2SgS-Impf put 3Sg Dat]] na δι bara attey woo Neg be except tea Dem 'The first thingx that [you(Sg)'ll decide that [you'll offer tx to him (=guest)]] is none other than this tea.' f. ay guna kaa [woyne woo baa ka kam] ISgSsee that [sun Dem want Inf fall] Ί saw that the sun was about to set.' Note that the complement clause may denote a (known or perceived) fact, as in (525a-b,d) or an idea for future actuation, as in (525c,e). The complementizer kaa is clearly distinct from the Inf[initive] morpheme ka (§9.7), which has a short vowel and is followed by a VP rather than by a full sentence (i.e., ka cannot be followed by a subject NP or by preverbal MAN morphemes). It is particularly important to note this distinction in the case of bey, which takes an indicative kaa complement in its basic lexical sense 'know (that ...)' but which takes ka plus VP as a serial verb in the experiental-perfect sense 'have (once, ever) VP-ed' (§9.7.5). We may also note that bey 'know', like its English counterpart, can take a direct-object NP and can also be used intransitively, as well as taking a clausal complement. Most of the other mental-activity verbs that permit kaa complements can also be used as transitive verbs with NP object. The relationship between the complementizer kaa 'that ...' and the Rel marker kaa is more intriguing (compare English that, which is used both as a complementizer and as a substitute for relative which ... or who ...). Whether to equate the complementizer to the Rel morpheme depends on decisions about how we model the two constructions syntactically. We pointed out in §8.3, above, that kaa relative clauses seem to hover between two syntactic structures, a predominant one in which kaa is a relative pronoun extracted from its original site (leaving behind at most a trace), and a secondary one favored by special factors (restarts, interference from syntactic constraints on extraction) in which Rel kaa is a nonpronominal complementizer that co-occurs with resumptive pronouns. To the extent that this secondary system is productive, we could correlate the nonpronominal Rel complementizer with the homophonous 'that ...' complementizer. Alternatively, one could attempt to engineer a "deep" syntactic analysis of 'that ...' complements whereby kaa was reanalysed as a special case of the relative pronoun, say with a phonologically

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

283

unrealized head NP (e.g., 'she knew THE FACT that ...'). Since the verbs that take indicative kaa complements are, in most cases, also attested as simple transitive verbs, such an analysis is at least conceivable. However, in this grammar I will distinguish Rel kaa from the 'that...' complementizer kaa. The verbs that take indicative kaa complements (at least those attested in reasonable numbers of textual examples) may also occur without kaa, that is, with bare indicative complements (discussed in the following section). Bare indicative complements are attested with bey (526a) but are fairly rare. In the case of horjgu, the indicative complement often omits the kaa (526b). (526)

a.

b.

ma bey [farka yekuwa-nte nono] 2SgSSubju know [donkey be-solid-Partpl it-is] 'You(Sg) should know it's a solid donkey.' yer hotjgu [hew nono] 1P1S believe [wind it-is] 'We thought it was wind (=a donkey disease).'

In 'that' complementizer function, variant forms of kaa are recorded. For a few speakers, a form kala occurs as an apparent alternative to the indicative complementizer kaa, as in (527). (527)

hal ma hoijgu kala, huri na^ a kaa t until 2SgSSubju believe that, knife Foe 3SgS become t '... so you might think, it's a knifex that it (=metal) has become tx .'

Another similar example of hoqgu kala ... was obtained from the same speaker, who nevertheless also used hoqgu kaa ... . These are the only two cases of complementizer kala in my corpus, and it is possible that it represents a secondary, phonologically mediated crossing between kaa and kala ... , a dialectal alternative to bara... 'since ..." (§8.5.3). Another minor dialectal variant is kaa na, presumably involving an original nonsubject Focus morpheme na that has lost its original function. It is attested after bar 'say' (528), though it is quite rare. (528)

bow di yo^ ο bar kaa na [bar duggura person Def PI Impf say that 0 [man short 'The people say that he is a short man.'

nono] it-is]

kaa na also appears dialectally as an optional elaboration of kaa in nonsubject relatives, particularly adverbial relatives (§8.3.6) like saa di kaa (na) ... 'when ...' (literally, 'the time which ...' with saa 'time'). In this case kaa is the Rel morpheme, and one could use these data to buttress the argument that Rel kaa and 'that' complementizer kaa are synchronically associated. However, kaa na (in these functions) is found only spottily in my Timbuktu data and some speakers do not use it at all. It should not be confused with a more common combination kaa na consisting of Rel kaa plus Neg na, as in bor kaa na koy 'a person who did not go'.

284

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

For kaa ... in the abstract relative sense 'when ...' or 'in such a way that ...', see §8.3.10.

9.5.9 Bare indicative complements (e.g. gar, diimi, £i, guna, bara) As noted in the preceding section, some and perhaps all verbs of mental activity ('know', 'think', etc.) that commonly take indicative kaa complements optionally omit the complementizer, resulting in a bare indicative complement clause with no overt complementizer. Indicative complements without kaa are regular after some other matrix verbs (or predicative NP), including those listed in (529). However, kaa is occasionally attested in these cases as well. (529)

Verbs and other predicates regularly taking bare indicative complements form gloss comments gar 'find, be found' generally impersonal ('it is the case that ...') guna 'see' 'see that ...' & 'be' 'be the case that ...' oiimi 'truth' as predicative NP ('be the truth that ...') kaabu 'count, reckon' 'count (=consider) NP to ...'

The verb gar can be a simple transitive verb 'find, encounter', as in (530). (530)

moreyda alhoor di muso foo na wor o now limestone Def manner which? Foe 2P1S Impf gar ga [dow di cirejl find 3SgO [sand Def under]? 'Now, limestone^, (in) what way do you(Pl) find itx under the ground?'

In the construction we are interested in here, gar takes an indicative clause as complement. The subject of 0armay be a discourse referent (531b-c), but it is usually 3Sg in (apparently) impersonal function (53 la). We have argued that this 3Sg subject retains a suggestion of referentiality (§6.1.1). The translation is 'it is (was) the case that ...' or 'it happens (happened) that ...' in the impersonal cases, and e.g. 4 I found it to be the case that ...' with a more clearly referential subject. (531)

a.

b.

c.

a gar [dow di daa ijga^ o faar] 3SgS find [sand Def Emph SFoc Impf thirst] 'It happened that the ground [focus] was parched.' nda ay gar [hay a goo^ [a raj] if ISgS find [thing be~ [3Sg Loc]] 'if I find that there is something in it' yer o gar [kuntur keyna yo goo a ra] 1P1S Impf find [ball small PI be~ 3Sg Loc] 'We'll find that there are small chunks (balls) in it.'

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses

285

Although the 3Sg impersonal type a gar is difficult to analyse, on the basis of examples like (531b-c) it seems best to take gar as a transitive verb 'find' with the complement clause functioning as direct object. This is in spite of the semantic attractiveness of a passive analysis of the impersonal type, cf. standard French il se trouve que.... Compare vernacular West African French ςα trouve que... . Occasionally we find a construction in which gar is followed first by a direct object, then by the indicative clause (containing a pronominal coindexed with the direct object), as in (532). (532)

no-o gar ga [a kaa tolli ciina, Sombudi ra] 2SgS-Impffind 3SgO [3SgS become drop small, glass Def Loc] 'You(Sg) find that it (=tea froth) becomes little drops on the (drinking) glass.'

Literally, 'You find itx [itx has become ...].' Here the complement clause could also be analysed as an adverbial clause (§9.5.3), i.e., "you find it when it has become *

guna 'see' has similar syntactic possibilities. (533a) has the simple indicative clause complement, while (533b) additionally has a main-clause direct object. (533)

a.

b.

n guna [yer koy-nda gi FJevageJ 2SgS see [1P1S go-with 3P1O veterinary-service] 'You saw that we took them (=donkeys) to the vet.' bara a ma sii ni ka guna ni must 3SgS Subju test 2SgO Inf see 2SgO [wala π ci bar wala ma na ci bar] [or 2SgS be man or 2SgS Neg be man] 'He must test you, to see (=determine) whether you are a man, or you aren't a man.'

Equational quasi-verb ci 'be' (§7.1.1) often occurs with an indicative clause as its complement. This is very common when the main clause is negated: a na ci [ ... ] 'it is not the case that...', cf. (466b) in §9.3.2. Another common pattern is woo δί [ ... ] 'this is [ ... ]' introducing explanatory elaborations, freely translatable as 'this means that...' or 'in other words,...' ciimi 'truth' often occurs as predicate nominal in diimi nono 'it is true.' In (534), it occurs without nono and (arguably) takes an indicative clause as complement. (534)

ciimi truth mere but

[[rjgu

[ay [ISgS a 3SgS

nda ga_^ ο dooney ka and 3SgO Impf be-accustomed Inf na wannasu yene Neg speak ISgDat

nda atakurmi woo

yo]

wannasu] converse]

wannasu]

[[3ReflSg and A Dem PI] story] 'It is true that he and I often converse, but he didn't tell me the story of himself and these Atakurmis (=dwarves).'

286

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

There is a concessive flavor here ('admittedly, he and I ...'), and it is not entirely clear that diimi is really a complement-taking constituent. Clause-initial bara 'must, it must be that ...' is most common with a subjunctive complement clause in obligational sense ('it must be that you go* = 'you must go'), see §9.6.2. With a bare indicative complement, bara ... can mean 'because ...; since ...' (§9.5.7). We are here interested in yet another use of bara ..., generally preceded by an expression of epistemic certainty like laabudda 'definitely' or by an Islamic oath such as wallaahi 'by God' (i.e., 'as God is my witness'). We may gloss it here crudely as 'indeed' or 'probably', but the modal force is carried chiefly by the preceding expression (535). (535)

a.

b.

laabudda bara a-a ta kow dow di soso di definitely indeed 3SgS-Impf Put take-away sand Def potash Def 'It (=rainstorm) will definitely remove (leech out) the potash in the ground.' wallaahi bara, yer gey-nda [[woo oinne] baana], by-God indeed, 1P1S endure-with [[Dem peer] rain], baada yer gey-nda [a Zinne] indeed 1PIS endure-with [3Sg peer] 'By God, we've certainly gone a long time without a rain like this, indeed we've gone a long time without its like.'

For the emphatic use of wala in (535a), see §8.5.9. In (535c), note that the wallaahi bara ... sentence is echoed in a slightly different form involving emphatic baada (§8.5.8). bara is also common in indicative complements of tammahaa in the sense 'expect (that...)', as in (536). (536)

yee tammahaa bara a-a ta noo ga njerfu ISgSImpf expect indeed 3SgS-Impf Put give 3SgO money Ί expect that he'll give her some money.'

9.5.10 Right-edge marking in antecedents and background clauses In conditional constructions, the antecedent ('if...') sometimes contains more than one clause. The left edge (onset) of the antecedent is marked by nda ... 'if ...', but since nda need not be repeated in each clause of a multi-clause antecedent, the question arises how the addressee knows where the antecedent ends and the consequent begins. Although there is no obligatory marking of the right edge of the antecedent, the forms listed in (537), and perhaps on occasion others, may be used in this function, kul and dee, unlike the others, can also be pronounced at the onset of the following consequent clause (cf. English then in 'if..., then ...' conditionals).

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses (537)

particle kul dee nin moo di

usual sense 'all' Emphatic Only' 'also' Definite

287

reference §5.4.3 §8.5.7, example (420) §8.5.2, example (393) §8.5.5, example (413b) §5.6

The common right-edge marker is kul 'all', in bare form without Absolute prefix a- or i-. If we wish to attribute the usual universal quantificational sense to this use of kul, two possibilities come to mind. One is that kul means something like 'any time ...', a stronger version of 'if ...'. The second is that kul here works at a higher pragmatic level, indicating that the exposition of the antecedent material is completed ('that is all'). However, the frequency of kul at the right edge of antecedents, or at the onset of consequents, suggests that this usage is grammaticalized (538). (538)

nda [n taar gi] kul no-o bey kaa if [2SgS touch 3P1O] all 2SgS-Impf know that woo ci^ alhoor Dem be limestone 'If you(Sg) touch them (=stones), you know that that is limestone.'

Since kul as quantifier is not normally attached to an object pronominal like 3P1O gi, it is clear that kul in (538) is a right-edge marker, terminating the antecedent. The listener will then interpret the following material unhesitatingly as the consequent. Without kul, the listener would initially have to consider the possibility that no-o bey kaa ... is an elaboration of the first clause of the antecedent: 'if you have touched them (and so) you know ...' In processing texts, readers should distinguish the right-edge marking use of kul from instances of true quantificational kul attached to an NP that happens to be clausefinal (e.g., a direct object). If instead of 3P1O gi in (538) we had an NP like bar di yo 'the men', an immediately following kul could be parsed either as the right-edge marker (nda [n taar [bar di yojjkul) or as a local NP quantifier (nda [n taar [bar di yo kul]] . In principle, we can get two adjacent kul morphemes carrying out these different functions. Such combinations are easily elicited, but in such examples speakers pronounce the edge-marking kul at the onset of the consequent, as in (539). (539)

nda n naa a-kul, kul no-o if 2SgS eat AbsolSg-all, all 2SgS-Impf 'When you have eaten all of it, then you will go.'

koy go

The other three forms listed in (537) are less frequent and more specialized than kul as right-edge markers, moo at the end of a conditional antecedent is best glossed On the other hand' and is used with an antecedent that is mutually incompatible with the antecedent of an immediately preceding conditional, dee has fairly low text frequency, and is generally reserved for cases where the consequent denotes an especially climactic event, nin Only' suggests finality and is therefore appropriate as a

288 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics right-edge marker for reasons similar to those applicable to kul. For examples of these three in conditional antecedents, see the references in (537). Def di is extremely rare in my Timbuktu data as a right-edge marker, but does seem to have this function in the textual example (540). This usage is far more common in DjCh and some other Songhay varieties. (540)

a na hantum jinaa, 3SgS Neg be-written at-first,

[nda

a

hantum

di]

a-a

kar...

[if 3SgS be-written Def] 3SgS-Impf strike ... 'It hasn't been written (by God) yet; when it is written, it (=rain) will strike ...' We have considered so far the right-edge of a conditional antecedent or similar background clause. Since the point is to indicate where the antecedent gives way to the consequent, the same effect can be achieved by using a left-edge (onset) marker in the consequent. Although no left-edge marker is grammatically required, expressions are available for this purpose. Even the right-edge markers already described are sometimes uttered in a way that connects them prosodically with the following consequent rather than with the end of the antecedent. This is especially true of Emph particle dee. A similar prosodic pattern is occasionally observed for kul. The common left-edge marker for conditional consequents is saa di 'time Def, i.e. '(at) that time, (in) that situation, then, so'. This expression is quite appropriate, since it effectively sums up the situation resulting from the eventualities denoted by the clauses in the antecedent in a manner that serves naturally as background for the consequent. In (541) it need not be translated. (541)

nda n gunaga saa di a £i i-baan-o-baan-o if 2SgS see 3SgO time Def 3SgS be Absol-Rdp(2)-soft-Adj 'When you see it, it is soft.'

In addition to actual conditionals with nda ... 'if ...', the right-edge markers described above, especially kul, are also common in other types of backgrounded clauses that establish a setting for a following foregrounded clause. Setting clauses may begin with saa ( di ) kaa 'when ...' (542a), nan^ kaa 'where ..., when ...' (542b), or hal 'until' in the sense 'as soon as' (542c). (542)

a.

saa kaa [n duma [hayni di yo]] kul time Rel [2SgS plant [millet Def PI]] all no-o sey hayni woo moo, i-kul o ci cere 2SgS-Impf sow millet Dem also, AbsolPl-all Impf be friend 'When you have (trans-)planted the millet plants, you will sow millet (seed) also; the two (=transplants and new sprouts) are mixed together.'

9.6 Subjunctive complements b.

c.

289

nan^ kaa [hari hun [ni barjgu di raj] kul, place Rel [water leave [2Sg marsh Def Loc]] all, no-o koy dogo-kate hayni woo ra 2SgS-Impf go uproot-Centrip millet Dem Loc 'Where water has receded from your (inundated) field, you go and uproot some of that millet (from the seedbed near the water line) and come back with it.' i-i jisi ga war se hal wor o kaa 3PlS-Impf put-down 3SgO 2P1 Dat until 2P1S Impf come ta foo gi, hal [wor o ta foo gi] kul, Inf greet 3P1O, until [2P1S Impf Put greet 3P1O] all, i-i dam war se albarka nda woo di 3PlS-Impf do 2P1 Dat thanks with Dem Def 'They put it down for you, before you come to greet them; once you have greeted them, they give thanks to you for that (=work).'

In (542a), with another bracketing we could interpret kul as being attached to hayni di yo, but in the text there seems to be no point in particularly stressing 'all the millet plants,' and I believe that kul here is a right-edge marker. This is clearer in (542b), where kul comes after a postposition; if it had been a local quantifier it would have followed the NP inside the PP (ni barjgu di kul ra 'all of your [inundated] field'). In (542c), we may disregard the first hal clause (glossed 'before* with Future VP). It is the second hal clause, hal [wor ο ta foo gi] kul, that serves as a de facto conditional antecedent, and here we get the right-edge marking kul.

9.6 Subjunctive complements The subjunctive mood is expressed by a preverbal morpheme ma, which directly follows a subject NP. For the irregular 2SgSubj ma replacing the rare fuller sequence ?#/H ma, and the optional irregular ISgSubj ye alongside regular ay ma, see §7.2.4. The mood marker is always ma after other pronouns and after all full NPs. The subjunctive may be directly negated, with si following ma. The subjunctive is therefore a full-fledged, finite clause, lacking only aspectual marking. In the following sections we describe in greater detail the syntactic and semantic contexts in which subjunctive clauses occur. We distinguish five construction types involving an identifiable "subjunctive trigger" which calls for this type of clause: specific matrix-clause verbs like 'want' (§9.6.1); obligational bara (§9.6.2); jussive reported speech (§9.6.3); certain complementizers (§9.6.4); a distant negative marker (§9.6.5). In §9.6.6 we discuss cases where there is no (overt) subjunctive trigger. Finally, in §9.6.7 we consider syntactic issues that cut across these types of cases, such as multiple subjunctive clauses associated with a single subjunctive trigger. There are two basic semantic clusters here. The most obvious one is deontic modality (desiderative, obligational, purposive), which is oriented toward possible future action. A less conspicuous one involves epistemic modality, specifically, the suspension of truth-value assertion of a clause under the scope of negation. Both the

290 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics deontic and the epistemic uses of the subjunctive can be pre-empted by the presence of stronger modal elements. The deontic use of the subjunctive is pre-empted by an overt imperative, but this still leaves plenty of deontic "space" for the subjunctive to appear in. On the other hand, the epistemic uses of the subjunctive are mainly associated with negation, but an overt negative within the clause pre-empts the subjunctive. As a result, we find an epistemic subjunctive clause most often in syntactic contexts involving a distanced negation that takes scope over, but is not part of, the subjunctive clause (§9.6.5). There are, however, some cases of non-negative epistemic subjunctives (§9.7.8). 9.6.1 Subjunctive complements to matrix-clause verbs The verbs listed in (543) can take subjunctive clauses as complements. All of them can also be used as simple transitives. Note that all are oriented toward future eventualities. (543)

verb a. baa baa-ndi taasi wir niya tammahaa batu b. kate c. jendi nan yedda ~ yadda dooney konno Sendu-ndi jinaa

gloss 'want' 'prefer' 'seek' 'seek' 'intend' 'hope, expect' 'wait for' 'bring about, cause' 'prevent' 'let, allow* 'consent to, allow' 'be accustomed to' 'dislike, hate' 'encourage* 'precede (event)'

comments not in sense 'be about to'

as transitive: 'bring, fetch' as transitive: 'leave'

All of the verbs in (543a-c) allow complements whose subject NP is noncoreferential to the subject of the matrix verb. In this case, the complement must appear as a finite subjunctive clause (Ί want that you go,' Ί brought it about that they come,' 'they prevented that I sleep'). An exception is that a negated jendi occasionally occurs with an indicative complement whose truth is presupposed ('... does not prevent [the fact] that...'), as in (365) in §8.4.1, above (cf. French n'empeche que...). Some of these matrix verbs ('want', 'seek', 'intend', 'consent', 'be accustomed') also allow complements whose subject NP is preferential to that of the matrix verb. In this case, the speaker may have two options. In the first, we again get a finite subjunctive clause (Ί want that I go'). If the matrix-clause subject is not a first or second person pronoun, the coreferential subjunctive clause subject must be expressed as a Logo/3Refl (singular or plural) pronoun, hence 'the manx wants that

9.6 Subjunctive complements

291

Logo/3ReflSgx go,' which distinguishes this from the noncoreferential case 'thex man wants that 3Sgy go.' The subjunctive option is regular for baa in the core sense 'want (to ...)', as well as with tammahaa 'hope, expect', and it is available as an option with the 'seek' verbs, as in (544a-d). It also occurs with batu 'wait' (544e). It is not attested in my data with 'intend', 'consent', or 'be accustomed'. (544)

a.

b.

c.

ay si baa [ay ma nin attey] ISgS ImpfNeg want ISgS Subju drink tea Ί don't want to drink tea.' yee tammahaa (nda) [ay ma kaa yeesi] ISgSImpf hope (with) [ISgS Subju come next-year] Ί hope to come back next year.' a-a taasi ijgu ma kaa president 3SgS-Impf seek LogoSgS Subju become president 'He seeks to become president.'

d

yee

e.

ISgSImpf seek ISgS Subju go Ί seek to go.' / si batu ni gaa [ma toone rjgu-yo] 3P1S ImpfNeg wait 2SgO Emph [2SgSSubju provoke LogoPIO] 'Theyx don't even wait for you to provoke themx.'

wir

ay

ma

koy

The second option for baa and the 'seek' verbs, and the only output attested for niya 'intend', yedda 'consent* and dooney 'be accustomed to', is an infinitival VP complement when the subjects of the two clauses are coreferential. Especially for baa this involves a semantic shift ('be on the verge of instead of 'want'). This serial-verb pattern is analysed in §9.7.2-3. For the verbs waaju 'advise' (
a.

b.

c.

d.

ay waaju ga [a ma koy bamako] ISgS advise 3SgO [3SgS Subju go B] Ί advised her to go to Bamako.' ay baba Sendu-ndi^ [ay ga] [ay ma cen huu di] ISg father encourage [ISg on] [ISgS Subju build house Dei] 'My father encouraged me to build the house.' ay gaabi ga [a ma koy bamako] ISgS compel 3SgO [3SgS Subju go B] Ί forced her to go to Bamako.' ay gaabi (# waaju) ga [ka koy bamako] ISgS compel (#advise) 3SgO [Inf go B] (=545c)

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9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

Some speakers can insert nda between the subjunctive trigger and the subjunctive clause. This appears to be limited to certain matrix verbs, and these speakers also produce or accept versions without nda. The following combinations are attested: yedda nda [... ] 'consent that [...]', niya nda [...] 'intend that [...]'. For bilaa nda... 'without', see §9.6.4. The first important cluster in (543) is the verbs of desire (543a). Subjunctive complements are shown in (546a-d). (546d)shows that baa uses the subjunctive in its core sense 'want' even with coreferential subjects. (546)

a.

[yer farka buun-o woo] yer^ ta baa-ndi [1P1S donkey exhausted-Adj Dem] ipfs Top prefer [yer ma koy-nda gi] [1P1S Subju go-with 3P1O] 'These exhausted donkeys of ours, we prefer to take them (along).' b. yer ο taasi nin moreyda [farka di ma qaa] 1P1S Impf seek only now [donkey Def Subju eat] 'We just seek (=want, hope) now that the donkey will eat (something).' c. ay si baa [a ma kottu] ISgS ImpfNeg want [3SgS Subju be-torn] Ί don't want it (=hide) to be torn.' d. [war wane assanaa woo] [2P1 Poss occupation Dem] yee baa ye hirow a ra ISgSImpfwant ISgSSubju enter 3Sg Loc "This trade of yours(Pl), I want to go (lit.: that I go) into it (as an apprentice).'

As in English, "negative raising" is common with 'want'. In (544a) and (546c), the negation arguably belongs in the subjunctive clause (Ί want that it not be torn'), but surfaces on the matrix verb (Ί don't want that it be torn'). However, with other matrix verbs, negation works differently in matrix and subjunctive clauses, as in (547a-b). (547)

a.

b.

a na yedda [ay 3SgS Neg consent [ISgS 'She did not consent that I come.' a yedda [ay ma 3SgS consent [ISgS Subju 'She consented that I not come.'

ma kaa] Subju come] si kaa] Neg come]

We now consider kate (543b). This is a high-frequency transitive verb meaning 'bring, fetch, go get and bring'. It is also attested in an analytic causative construction, which we can translate 'bring it about (that...)', as in (548).

9.6 Subjunctive complements (548)

293

maa gga &i hay di kaa no-o hin^ ka dam what? SFocbe thing Def Rel 2SgS-Impf canT Inf do kaa kate [ni jaari di ma si mussujl Rel bring [2Sg day Def Subju Neg be-lost]? 'What is the thing you can do which brings it about that your day not be wasted?'

The vast majority of causatives are expressed by using the productive Causfative] derivation (§6.2.2), or by simply switching valency with no overt change in the verb stem (§6.2.1). However, (548) is an appropriate use of the more complex (but more transparent) analytic causative construction, since the lower clause contains an internal negation which could not be precisely captured in a compressed monoclausal version. Next we consider verbs of allowing and preventing (543c). In these constructions, the subject of the subjunctive clause is almost always distinct from the subject NP of the matrix clause. Examples in (549). (549)

a.

b.

c.

d

yer junubu yo rjga jendi [baana ma kar] 1P1 sin PI SFoc prevent [rain Subju hit] 'It's our sins [focus] that have prevented [rain from falling].' no-o nan [a ma koo] 2SgS-Impf let [3SgS Subju dry] 'You(Sg) will let it dry out.' n si yedda [ay ma koy ka nan ni] 2SgS ImpfNeg consent [ISgS Subju go Inf leave 2SgO] 'You(Sg) won't consent that I go and leave you.' nda^ a noo boro se haya if 3SgS give person Dat thing ka jwaa [a ma bunj Inf precede [3SgS Subju die] 'if hex gave someoney a thing before hex died'

Note that "positive" nan 'let' and yedda 'consent', as well as "negative" jendi 'prevent' (= 'not let'), have the subjunctive complement. This is a further indication that deontic modality (here: intention) is more significant than degree of likely truth in determining the use of the subjunctive mood. For nan 'let', I have also recorded a construction with an intervening hal 'so that' (in other contexts 'until'), as in (550a). For hal as subjunctive trigger see §9.6.4. In villages near Timbuktu, nan can take indicative as well as subjunctive complements; an indicative example is (550b). I did not hear such a construction in Timbuktu itself. (550)

a.

b.

ni si nan hal [i ma hlsa ka nin kul] 2SgS ImpfNeg leave until [3P1S Subju do-muchlnf ripen all] 'You don't let them (=melons) get overly ripe.' ay nan [i koy] ISgS leave [3P1S go] Ί allowed them to go.'

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9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

Though not real subjunctive triggers, noo 'give' and kate ~ kata in the literal sense 'bring, fetch' are often immediately followed by a bare subjunctive complement denoting a projected follow-up action, as in (551). (551)

... wala wor o noo kuuru ... or 2P1S Impf give skin [i ma hJsa ga [war se]] [3P1S Subju make 3SgO [2P1 Dat]] or do you(Pl) give (them) the skin for them to make it (=waterbag) for you?'

9.6.2 Subjunctive complements of obligational bara bara occurs in various functions: verb of existence (§7.1.3), 'except' particle (§8.5.3), and 'because ...' particle (§9.5.7). Leaving these aside, it occurs sentence-initially in two impersonal constructions, one with following bare indicative complement associated particularly with oaths and other strong assertions (§9.5.9), the other with a following subjunctive complement, usually in obligational sense (bara [X Subju see Y] = 'X must see Y'). In the subjunctive (mainly obligational) construction that concerns us here, nothing precedes bara within the sentence. Negation is expressed inside the subjunctive clause (bara [X Subju not see Y] = 'X must not see Y'). Focus too is expressed, if at all, inside the subjunctive clause, as in the elicited examples (552a-b). (552)

a.

b.

bara ni ijga ma koy, a na c£ must 2Sg SFoc Subju go, 3SgS Negbe 'You [focus] must go, not I.' bara häySi di na ma wii, a must dog Def Foe 2SgSSubju kill, 3SgS 'You must kill the dog [focus], not the cat.'

ey ISgO na ci mu&i di Neg be cat Def

In the absence of direct inflection it is difficult to identify the word-class status of bara; I label it as one of the "quasi-verbs," my all-purpose expression for defective or deviant verb-like elements (§7.1.3). The interlinear gloss will be 'must'. Some examples of obligational bara are given in (553). (553)

a.

b.

bor kaa si mey hin-ey ka goy, person Rel ImpfNeg have power Inf work, bara [[a koy di] ma goy] must [[3Sg boss Def] Subju work] '(If) someone, has no (other) means to work, the fellow^ must work.' bara [ye yee ka koy kow kufa di] must [ISgSSubju return Inf go take-away curiosity Def] had to go back to remove (=satisfy) the curiosity.'

9.6 Subjunctive complements c.

295

[woo yo ta kul] bara [ni nda gi] ma haqga [Dem PI Top all] must [2Sg and 3P1O] Subju follow 'All those (tools), you(Sg) and they (=tools) must go with (each other).'

(553c) involves a proposed topical constituent that is not syntactically part of the sentence beginning with bara. (553b) illustrates the ISgSSubju variant ye (for ay ma). The weaker obligational sense 'should, ought to' is expressed by the serial verb hima plus infinitival VP complement (§9.7.4). On the other hand, the obligational sense of bara can be capped by a stronger obligational predicate like a tilasu 'it is obligatory (that...)', as in (554). (554)

a tilasu [ni 3SgS be-obligatory [2SgS 'You are obligated to go.'

ma koy] Subju go]

As noted above, bara with subjunctive complement occasionally has the epistemic sense 'it is certain that ...' or 'it is very likely that ...'. The assertion is only slightly less strong than in the oaths containing bara and indicative complements (§9.5.9). This use of bara plus subjunctive is much less common than the obligational usage illustrated in (554), but there are a respectable number of textual examples such as those in (555). (555)

a.

b.

c.

bara [ma guna moqgoro nun dooti] must [2SgSSubju see mango leave there] 'You(Sg) will undoubtedly see that mangoes are no longer there.' bara [ma guna koyroo banda woo kul must [2SgSSubju see this-town behind Dem all qga kaa subu firji] SFoc become grass green] 'You(Sg) will undoubtedly see that [the whole back of (=area around) this town] [focus] has become green grass.' tuuri sii kul kaa^i gar dooti tree kind all Rel 3P1S find there bara [i ma hasara] must [3P1S Subju ruin] 'Every kind of treey they (=elephants)x find there, they, will certainly destroy it,.'

9.6.3 Subjunctive clauses in jussive reported speech Reported speech is generally introduced by the quotative verb har 'say', immediately followed by the quotation with no intervening complementizer. The quoted material can appear in either the (unmarked) indicative mood or in the subjunctive mood. When

296 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics the original utterance was assertive (as in a narration), it remains indicative when reported. Aside from the preceding har, reported indicative speech is indexed by deictic adjustments, notably the logophoric pronouns (§10.1.1-2). However, when the original utterance was imperative (§7.3), the reported version takes the subjunctive mood. We refer to this construction as "jussive." Contrast indicative (556a) with jussive (556b). (556)

a.

i har [rjgu-yo^ o mey ga] 3P1S say [LogoPlS Impf have 3SgO] 'Theyx said that they, had it.' b. yee har a se ISgSImpf say 3Sg Dat [a ma koy kate [farka [3SgS Subju go fetch [donkey Ί will tell him to go fetch the donkeys.'

di Def

yo]] PI]]

The direct-speech utterance underlying (556b) is most likely the overt imperative (557). (557)

koy kate [farka di go bring [donkey Def 'Go fetch the donkeys!'

yo] PI]

However, the direct-speech utterance could conceivably have been something like (558), already in subjunctive form in spite of the absence of an overt "subjunctive trigger" (see §9.6.6). (558)

ma koy kate [farka di yo] 2SgSSubju go bring [donkey Def PI] '(I suggest) that you go fetch the donkeys.'

The fact that original subjunctive clauses like (558) and original imperatives like (557) are collapsed, in reported speech, into jussive subjunctive clauses is our first indication of a certain tension between a) a tendency for the subjunctive to generalize to all semantically appropriate deontic contexts; and b) the blocking of overt subjunctive morphology in certain constructions containing a stronger modal element (here "imperative"). In a syntactic context where the stronger modal cannot appear for some reason, the weaker subjunctive marking materializes. In §9.6.5 we will bring out a similar pattern involving negative contexts. 9.6.4 Subjunctive clauses with complementizers (hal, bilaa) The particle hal can be used as a quasi-preposition before a (spatiotemporal) NP or NP-like adverbial in the sense 'until, all the way to' (§5.9.8). As a clause-initial

9.6 Subjunctive complements

297

complementizer it can precede an indicative clause (§9.5.6) or a subjunctive clause. The subjunctive type, to be analysed in this section, is extremely common. It is the basic purposive and result clause construction and can be glossed 'so that ... , in order that... , with the result that...'. Examples in (559). (559)

a. yer ο faani, hal [yer ma moor [dow di cirej] 1P1S Impf dig, until [1 PIS Subju be-far [sand Def under]] 'We dig, until (=so that) we go deeply under the (surface of) the sand.' b. a-a harjga a-a dira 3SgS-Impf follow 3SgS-Impf walk hal [a ma soroku [guusu di raj] until [3SgS Subju fall [pit Def Loc]] 'It (=animal) just kept on walking with the result that it fell into the (hidden) pit.'

In most cases, as in (559a), the hal clause denotes an eventuality that is both a factual and an intended result of the eventuality denoted in the preceding clause. However, in (559b) the result is quite unintended by the unfortunate animal. There are also examples where the intended result was not in fact actualized, as in (560).

ay

faani hal ay wuraa, ma duu ISgS dig until ISgS Subju get gold, mere ay na gar aa but ISgS Neg find 3SgO Ί dug in order to get some gold, but I didn't find it.'

(560)

The particle bilaa 'without' (
a.

b.

muso kaa rjgu hin^ ka duu ga nda, ka din_^ ga, way Rel LogoSgS can" Inf get 3SgO with, Inf take 3SgO, bilaa [a ma marey ijgu without [3SgS Subju injure LogoSgO wala a ma too ηgu] or 3SgS Subju reach LogoSgO] '(... to know) a way with which he (=a man) can get it (=animal)J[, and take (=capture, kill) it,, without itx hurting him or itx reaching him.' ay nafu goroggo di, ISgS seize chicken Def, bilaa nda ay ma marey ga without with ISgS Subju wound 3SgO Ί grabbed the chicken, without hurting it (in the process).'

298 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (561, cont.) c. ay qaa hani di, ISgS eat electric-fish Def, bilaa nda ay ma hina ga without with ISgS Subju cook 3SgO Ί ate the electric fish, without cooking (=having cooked) it.' Since bilaa 'without' is intrinsically negative, it is reasonable to connect this use of the subjunctive with those described in the following section. An alternative way of expressing 'X, without Y' where X and Υ are clauses, is by simple juxtaposition of X with the negative form of Υ (§9.5.3). 9.6.5 Subjunctive clauses under the scope of a distant negative Simple negative clauses ('she didn't see him,' Ί am not sick') are expressed in the unmarked indicative mood. That is, the negative morpheme itself is the only indication of the truth-value status of the underlying (positive) proposition. In this respect, KCh resembles English and other western European languages, and diverges from the pattern seen in some (e.g. Australian) languages where ordinary negation is marked by the combination of a negative morpheme and an irrealis mood form ('it wasn't that she see-Irrealis him,' 'It's not that I be-Irrealis sick'). However, there are indications that even in KCh, clauses under the scope of a negation have latent tendencies to take subjunctive rather than indicative form. In other words, while the KCh subjunctive is predominantly a future-oriented deontic modal (desiderative, obligational, purposive), it has a second function, admittedly less conspicuous, as an irrealis (nonactualized) epistemic modal. We got a hint of this in the use of subjunctive complements after bilaa 'without' (§9.6.4). Since 'without' has a built-in negative semantic component, perhaps this (weak) negation rather than deontic modality is responsible for the subjunctive mood. (562)

yee yenaa gi nin i na bey ka kaa ta ISgSImpf precede 3P1O only 3P1S Negknow Inf come Inf gar ey [a ra] gaa, sanda boro ma kaa ta find ISgO [3Sg Dat] Emph, like person Subju come Inf gar ey barjgu di maasu-maasu ta find ISgO swamp Def middle Top Ί precede them (=leave before they come). They have never come and found me in it (=field), like for someone to come and find me in the middle of the rice field.'

In (562), the phrase beginning sanda 'like' (or 'for example') is an elaboration or paraphrase of the underlying proposition 'they come and find me' that is overtly negated in the preceding clause. The elaboration clause lacks the overt Neg marker, but shifts to subjunctive mood to indicate (indirectly) that it remains under the (semantic) scope of the earlier negation in spite of the syntax. Consider now (563).

9.6 Subjunctive complements (563)

299

a si hasara [n ga] haya foo 3SgS ImpfNeg hurt [2Sg on] thing one nda^ a n di [ni daa nda n homo di] qga— if *" 3SgS Neg be[2SgEmph and 2Sg head Def] SFoc— ma jiti [n oomo kuna] kul 2SgSSubju be-startled [2Sg head Loc] all 'It (=dwarf) won't harm a thing on you, if it is not you yourself [focus] who—, you may be frightened in your head (=mentally).'

Here we focus on the conditional antecedent beginning with nda a n di ... 'if it is not (the case that)...'. This is a higher-level negation, taking a complete sentence as its complement (§9.3.2). In this example, the Neg marker is further distanced from the main proposition it negates ('you be frightened') by an intervening fronted focal subject NP which is itself internally complex ('you indeed and your head' = 'you yourself); note SFoc morpheme nga. On the tape there is a brief hesitation after nga, then a subjunctive clause, '(you) be frightened in your head.' Because a Subju ma is homophonous with 2SgSSubju ma, it is unclear whether ma jiti... is a restarted clause with 2Sg subject, or just part of the grammatical larger clause ni daa ... ijga ma jiti.... In (564) we have a similar example with no interrupting hesitations. (564)

ciimi nono, nda a na oi [jaman di] ijga ma hasara truth it-is, if 3SgS Neg be [season Def] SFoc Subju be-bad 'It is true, unless it's the season [focus] that is bad.'

A more literal translation is 'it's the truth, if it is not (the case that) [it's the season which be ruined],1 cf. (285) in §8.5.3. (564) shares with (563) the use of a higher-level negation and the subject-focus construction in the lower clause, and there are additional textual examples of exactly this type. What (562-64) seem to have in common is that a negative operator has semantic scope over a clause X, but does not appear directly in the normal (preverbal) position within X itself. Either X is an elaboration or paraphrase of a preceding negated proposition (minus the Neg marker), or X is negated by a higher-level negation and itself has a focalized subject NP intervening between this negation and its own VP. I have no textual examples where non-subject focus, as opposed to subject focus as in (563-64), combines with higher-level negation to force a shift to subjunctive mood. For example, (481) in §9.3.5, above, is 'it is not [[only once] [focus] (that) I drank alcohol]' with indicative mood.

9.6.6 Bare subjunctive clauses with no overt trigger Subjunctive clauses do not seem to be used in "indicative" (assertive) contexts with habitual or progressive function, as in some other Songhay languages. However, there are quite a few textual examples where a subjunctive clause occurs in the absence of a

300 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics "subjunctive trigger," that is, a complementizer or a matrix-clause verb that specifically licenses the subjunctive mood. In general, such "bare" subjunctive clauses can be interpreted as cases where a subjunctive trigger that could have appeared overtly is omitted (or phonetically unrealized). However, a bare subjunctive clause may also represent a neutralization of two or more constructions with different overt triggers. This pattern is familiar from other languages with a subjunctive (e.g. Spanish). In some cases, the "bare" subjunctive clause is merely a simplified repetition of a previously uttered construction involving the subjunctive and an overt trigger. This is common when one speaker repeats another speaker's (occasionally, his or her own) utterance, for purposes of verification or to indicate comprehension. Such echoic repetitions are eminently characteristic of conversational structure in all societies of this region. An example is given in (565). (565)

H: ... bara [a ma bar ga] ... must [3SgS Subju say 3SgO] '... he must say it.' D: bara [a ma bar ga] H: a ma bar ga [rjgu se] '... hex must say it to himy (LogoSg)'

Here speaker H concludes a turn with a subjunctive clause following the overt subjunctive trigger bara 'must' (§9.6.2). Speaker D echoes this verbatim, whereupon H repeats just the subjunctive clause, without the bara, adding an indirect object pronominal. A subjunctive clause is also used in similar repetitions of an imperative, as in (566). (566)

X: koy kate ban di! go fetch water Def! 'Go fetch the water!' Y: ay ma koy kate ban ISgS Subju go fetch water Ί am to go fetch the water?'

dil Def?

This shift from imperative to subjunctive form in repetitions is analogous to the same shift in jussive reported speech (§9.6.3). Indeed, the repetition in Y's turn in (567) could be analysed as containing a covert quotative ('are you telling me that I am to go ...?'). In (567a) the subjunctive clause ('they not eat') is an intended result of the herding (guiding) mentioned in the preceding clause, so it is a (negated) purposive clause. The full form would involve clause-initial hal. (567b) involves an involuntary result, but this too is well within the normal semantic range of hal (§9.6.4).

9.6 Subjunctive complements (567)

a.

b.

301

nda^ a gar haya nono kaa boro hin^ ka kw if 3SgS find thing it-is Rel person can Inf herd no-o hin^ ka kur gi, i ma si gaa— 2SgS-Impf carT Inf herd 3P1O, 3P1S Subju ImpfNeg eat— ka dam hasar-ow Inf do damage 'If it were the case that it (=elephant) was something that one could herd (=guide), you(Sg) would be able to herd them (=elephants), (so that) they would not eat (trees) and do damage.' saa di boro o hin ka koy, time Def person Impf can Inf go, ni jaari di goy di kul ma kaa bakabaka ? 2Sg day Def work Def all Subju become chunks ? 'So, one can go (and dig for limestone all day), (with the result that) your whole day's output may turn out to be (merely) debris?' *_/

*

I—*

Another recurrent pattern is to use the subjunctive with 2Sg or 2P1 subject in a watered-down imperative or obligational sense. This hortative function seems to be fairly common with verbs like 'know' and 'notice', as in (568). (568)

a.

ma koro$i ga, 2SgSSubjunotice 3SgO, kaa ay gaa Rel ISg Presentative

ma

[ay wane [ISg Poss bar mana say 2SgDat

koroSi addama-jje

£iini^ woo ga] wonT Dem on] moreyda, now,

woo kaa...

2SgSSubjunotice human Dem Rel ... 'You(Sg) should notice it, on the basis of my words (to you), which it is I who say them to you now; you should notice this person who >

b.

ammaa farka kül kaa n guna woo di din, but donkey all Rel 2SgS see Dem Def seize, ma bey farka yekuwa-nte nono 2SgSSubjuknow donkey be-strong-Partpl it-is 'But every donkey which, you've seen this (disease) afflict tx , know that it, is a strong (=healthy) donkey.'

This construction is also found with other verbs, as in (569). (569)

nda boro fatta haya se nin, if person exit thing Dat only, ma dam ga [nda a fondo di] 2SgSSubjudo 3SgO [with 3Sg path Def] 'If one (=you) goes out for something,,, you should do it, properly.'

Simple subjunctive clauses are also ideal for first person plural (inclusive) hortatives, as in (570).

302 (570)

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics maa na yer ma dam hal jaari di ma si hasara ? what? Foe 1P1S Subju do until day Def Subju Neg be-bad? 'What shall we do, so the day isn't wasted?'

In §9.6.5 we commented that clauses under the scope of a negation seem to be latently subjunctive despite their usual surface indicative form, and that when the Neg is sufficiently distanced syntactically, the clause may adopt subjunctive form. Consider (571) in this light. (571)

maasu taaci di kaa oindi no-o jow bundu inside four Def Rel remain 2SgS-Impf take stick [ma haw ga a ga] [2SgSSubju tie 3SgO 3Sg on] 'The four inner pieces that remain, you take a stick^ and tie itx on it (=crate).'

Leaving aside the proposed topical constituent (maasu ... oindi), this example consists of an indicative clause ('you take a stick,/) and a subjunctive clause ('you tie itx on it'). One way to analyse this is to suppose that the subjunctive clause is a purposive or result clause attached to the preceding indicative clause. In this case, we could take ma haw ga a ga as having omitted an implied hal 'so that' complementizer, as in several examples discussed in the preceding section. However, from a semantic point of view it is hard to see 'you tie itx on it' as the purpose or result of 'you take a stickx'; it is simply the next instruction in the speaker's complex 'recipe' for building a crate for a donkey to carry. A trick-of-the-trade description like this hovers between a report of a habitual and generic activity ('you [=someone] take a stick...'), a prediction of the addressee's future action ('you will take a stick ...'), and a deontic modal (imperative 'take a stick ...', hortative 'you should take a stick ...', obligational 'you must take a stick ...'). It is therefore possible that the relevant sequence in (573) began as an indicative with generic 2Sg subject, then "lapsed" into a pragmatically more appropriate weak deontic form using the subjunctive without an explicit trigger. For a somewhat different type of indicative-to-subjunctive shift, see discussion of (574) in §9.6.8.

9.6.7 Multiple subjunctive clauses Many of the examples above show an overt subjunctive trigger followed by a single subjunctive clause. However, in texts we often find a string of subjunctive clauses bound to a single subjunctive trigger. Because of this, the subjunctive has an important function in parsing text. Schematically, given a sequence of the type T x subj Ysubj Zindic» where T is a subjunctive trigger and X, Y, and Z are the next three clauses, the subjunctive mood marking in X and Υ indicates that both of these clauses are bound to T, while the indicative clause Ζ is clearly outside the scope of T. If Υ had been Indie, it too would have been interpreted as outside the scope of T. Consider (572).

9.6 Subjunctive complements (572)

303

... ka didii ga [a ga] hal [[a ma yekuwa] ... Inf roll 3SgO [3Sg on] until [[3SgS Subju be-firm] [a ma mey-ndi ga gaabi]] [3SgS Subju have-Caus 3SgO force]] '...to roll (=tie) it, (=rope) around ity (=crate), so that it, is tight and it, gives it, strength.'

Here the subjunctive trigger is hal 'so that'. The fact that both immediately following clauses ('be tight' and 'give it strength') are subjunctive indicates that both are under the scope of hal. The free translation shows how English relies on the conjunction and to help make the scope relationships clear. (Prosodic clues are also important in both languages.) The clause juxtaposition in (572) is still rather simple, but in other textual examples we get discontinuous subjunctive clauses bound to a single subjunctive trigger, with intervening indicative clauses of various sorts. In (573), an extended chunk of reported speech begins with a subjunctive clause (jussive), then shifts to indicative (reported assertion), then back to the subjunctive (another jussive). (573)

rjgu bar a se kaa [a ma fur ijgu], LogoSgS say 3Sg Dat that [3SgS Subju release LogoSgO], ηgυ ta—, [ijgu na £i bara atakurmi], moreyda, LogoSg Top—, [LogoSgS Neg be except A], now, [a ma fur ijgu] [3SgS Subju release LogoSgO] '(The dwarf, said) it, had told himy to set it, free, it,—, (that) itx was none other than Atakurmi (=dwarf), now, and to set it, free.'

Note that the free translation given is rather shaky English, where jussive and indicative segments of reported speech under the same quotative verb do not mix well.

9.6.8 Further epistemic subjunctive constructions ('maybe') Consider now a construction of the schematic type 'X, or maybe Y' where X and Υ are clauses and where Υ expresses a less likely alternative to X. Such constructions often appear with ordinary indicative clause X followed by a subjunctive clause Y, as in (574). The Y clause is often added as an afterthought. (574)

nda n bun, boro yo^ o bana ga if 2SgS die, person pf Impf pay 3SgO [wala ni^ ije yo ma bana ga] [or 2Sg child PI Subju pay 3SgO] 'If you die (with a debt), the relatives will pay it, or maybe your kids will pay it.'

304

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

We also have examples like (575), where a subjunctive clause denoting a hypothetical eventuality functions as one argument of equational quasi-verb &' 'be': (575)

a-meer ci [i ma bar [ni koy...]] Absol-ugly be [3P1S Subju say [2SgS go ...]] 'The ugly thing is (=would be) that they say that you went...'

Another way to say 'maybe X' with X a clause is to say a goo^ a ra, literally 'it is in it' (i.e., 'it is in the realm of possibility'), and follow this with a subjunctive clause expressing the prepositional subtance. An example is (576). (576)

[a goo a ra] [a ma nafa ni] [3SgS be~ 3Sg Loc] [3SgS Subju benefit 2SgO] 'It could be that he will do good things for you.'

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs In this section we begin our analysis of infinitival VPs, which consist of Inf morpheme ka plus a VP (without subject NP or any MAN morphemes). Examples of Inf VPs are ka koy 'to go' and ka noo ga_^ i se 'to give it to them'. Infinitival complements lack Impf or Subju markers and cannot take normal negation; for a rough functional equivalent of negation see the discussion of serial-verb jen in §9.7.6. The regular constructions involving Inf ka can be classified as in (577). (577)

first part a. VP b. serial verb c. VP d. verb e. NP

second part Inf + VP Inf + VP Inf + serial verb Inf + verb Inf + VP

comments event sequence common serial-verb pattern less common serial-verb pattern verb-verb compound in certain idiomatic phrases

By "serial verb" we mean a verb that is specialized to occur in combination with a fuller VP, which we will call the "substantive VP." Most serial verbs occur in pattern (577b). The less common pattern (577c), where the substantive VP precedes the specialized serial verb, is found with ben 'end, finish' (§9.7.5) and in the comparative construction with bisa 'exceed' (§9.7.8). The full VP represents the core scenario ('boy kill dog'), while the attached serial verb adds a grammatical category (aspect, mood), motion, or a higher predicate (e.g. 'try'). In the following sections we consider in turn the various formal subtypes shown in (577a-c,e). Several sections are devoted to serial verbs, which encompass several distinct semantic complexes. For the relatively few verb-verb compounds of type (577d), see §6.3.2. Notably absent from these sections are desideratives (Ί want to go'), verbs of allowing and preventing (Ί let him eat,' Ί prevented him from eating'), and for the most part purposives (Ί slaughtered the sheep in order to eat it'). Though these often

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

305

take infinitive form in English and other familiar languages, they are expressed in KCh by finite subjunctive clauses, e.g., Ί want that I go' (§9.6). Certain serial-verbs in pattern (577b) take zero or ta instead of ka as the Inf marker. See (§9.7.2) for a full inventory of serial verbs and of their syntactic peculiarities. Rarely, Inf ka is used to overtly nominalize a VP which is fronted as a focused NP constituent. See §4.3.5. Infinitival VPs cannot be conjoined by nda 'and', and cannot be complements of adpositions (e.g. preposition nda 'with' or Dative postposition se). However, wala Or' may be used, as in (578). (578)

a ma si koy bar qgu^ o guna gi 3SgS Subju Neg go say LogoSgS Impf see 3P1O ka jow ferey ka warra gi [nda ga] Inf take brick Inf throw 3P1O [with 3SgO] wala [ka jow bundu] ka bar... or [Inf take stick] Inf say ... 'He should not go and think that he sees them, and take a brick and throw it at them, or take a stick and think (intend)..."

9.7.1 Infinitival VPs in event sequences There is a device used selectively in narratives whereby two or more successive events with shared subject NP are expressed by an initial main clause followed by one or more infinitival VPs. Consider the sequence in (579). (579)

El yer ο taasi ka dam [a ra] fane, hal yer ma bisa, 1 PIS Impf seek Inf make [3SgLoc] hole, until 1 PIS Subju pass, E2 ka koy ganda, Inf go ground, E3 ka filla ka koy too [dow foo di] Inf repeat Inf go arrive [sand one DefJ '(El) We try to make a small hole in it (=limestone deposit), so that we go through; (E2) and (we) go into the ground; (E3) and (we) again reach a (layer of) earth (under the limestone).'

There are two ways to construe the syntax. In one, the events E2 and E3 arc parallel to the event El, but are attached to El in the form of infinitival VPs (taking advantange of the fact that the underlying subject NP is shared). The alternative construal is that E2 and E3 are really parallel to the infinitival VP ka dam ... within El, all three being embedded in parallel under the serial verb taasi 'seek'. Another example of this ambiguous type is (580).

306 (580)

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics El ...yer o duu ka kaa ta goro, ... 1P1S Impf proceed Inf come Inf sit, E2 ka jafa-jafa ga Inf carve-carve 3SgO E3 ka ffisa ga, hal a ma sawa Inf fix 3SgO, until 3SgS Subju be-equal '... (El) we proceed to come and sit, (E2) and (we) work it (=stone)][ (E3) and (we) fix itj well, so that it is smooth-surfaced.'

Again we could take E2 and E3 as parallel either to El as a whole, or to the infinitival VP ta goro 'to sit' which forms part of El, following the motion verb kaa 'come'. In (579), the two analyses are about equally plausible, but in (580) it seems unlikely that E2 and E3 are subordinated to the motion verb, so I strongly prefer the first analysis. Consider now (581). (581)

El yer dumbu baigo mee, 1P1S cut metal-drum mouth, E2 ka ton gi nda hari, Inf fill 3P1O with water, E3 yer—, yer dam i ra hari-ham di 1P1S—, 1P1S put 3P1 Loc water-meat Def '(El) We cut open the metal drums (=former gasoline containers), (E2) and (we) filled them with water; (E3) we—, we put the fish in them.'

Here El contains no internal serial-verb construction, so the only possible analysis is that the events E2 and E3 are parallel to the event El. Examples (579-81) in combination demonstrate the validity of the infinitival-VP narrative sequence, but also show how difficult it can be to distinguish it from constructions with several infinitival VPs attached to a serial verb. In KCh narrative, event sequences are normally expressed by strings of complete sentences (Ί came, I saw, I conquered'). However, the construction illustrated above, where El appears as a full sentence and is then quickly followed by one or more other event predications (E2,...) in infinitival VP form, is available when the (understood) subject NP remains constant, when the events are in a structured sequence, and when the speaker chooses to accelerate the narrative. A sequence like that in (581) allows the speaker to build up rhythmical energy, and strings like this are especially common in energetic narrative climaxes. It should be noted that literal translations with English infinitives (Ί came, to see, to conquer'), while they partially capture the rhythms, inappropriately suggest purposive clauses. So the most stylistically revealing translations are of the type Ί came and saw and conquered,' but it should be understood that the KCh infinitival VPs do not include MAN marking.

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

307

9.7.2 Inventory of serial verbs The few serial verbs in (582) follow the substantive VP. The much larger set of serial verbs in (583) precede the substantive VP. Note the fa after kaa 'come1 in (583e).

InfplusSerV ... ka ben

(582)

... ka bisa... ... kajinaa...

SerV

(583)

a.

b. c.

d

e.

M

gloss as serial verb finish VP-ing VP more than ... VP before ...

gloss as serial verb 'try to VP' taasi ka 'consent to VP' yedda ka 'VP as one pleases* lobbe ka 'intend to VP' niya ka 'plan to VP, seek to VP' wir ka hima ka Ought to VP' 'can VP, is able to VP' hin ka 'be about to VP' baa ka 'begin to VP' sinti ka 'have ever VP-ed' bey ka 'have already VP-ed' faati ka 'have VP-ed recently' kokoro ka 'keep VP-ing' oindi ka 'be used to VP-ing' dooney ka 're-VP, VP again' yee ka filla ka, 0 're-VP, VP again' 'proceed to VP' duu ka jow ka 'VP energetically' 'VP very much, VP a lot' Kisa ka laafriiti ka 'VP a hell of a lot' jen ka 'fail to VP, not VP' 'fail (be unable) to VP' moyjo ka dinaa ka 'forget to VP' 'help X to VP' faaba ka koy 0 'go and VP' 'come and VP' kaa ta 'go along VPing' dira ka 'get up (and go) and VP' tun ka 'run and VP, VP running' jur ka 'VP abruptly, hasten to VP' jiti ka key ka 'stop and VP' 'VP in early morning' biyaa ka 'VP in mid-day, VP all day' hoy ka 'VP at night, VP all night' hanna ka

gloss as simple verb end, be used up pass, go past, go on precede gloss as simple verb 'seek, look for, try to get' 'consent, accept* 'do as one pleases' (noun anniya 'intention') 'seek, plan, try to get' (cf. hima-nda 'resemble') 'master, overpower' 'want' (with subjunctive) 'begin' 'know' 'pass away (=die)' 'be the last,-!- most recent' 'remain' 'do frequently or usually' 'return, go back' 'repeat, narrate' 'get, earn' 'take, take possession of 'fix, make (well), prepare' (oath with emphatic force) 'fail at' 'fail at, lose to' 'forget' 'help' 'go' 'come' 'walk, travel, depart' 'get up, get up and go* 'run' 'be startled, rush' 'stop, stand' 'go in early morning' 'spend mid-day' 'stay up late at night'

308 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics In the following sections we discuss these groupings in turn. For the occasional use of wala 'even' as a serial verb, see (424b) in §8.5.9, above.

9.7.3 Control verbs In this section we exemplify cases where the serial verb appears to denote a separate eventuality (usually an act of will) in which the eventuality denoted by the infinitival VP complement is embedded. By contrast, most of the serial verbs mentioned in later sections do not denote a separate eventuality. The boundary between this class and some of the others to follow is gradient. See the list (583a) in the preceding section. Some of the volitional verbs (taasi 'seek', yedda 'consent') can also occur with noncoreferential subjects, in which case subjunctive rather than infinitival VP complements are required (§9.6). In (584) we give examples of two of these verbs with infinitival VP complements, which presuppose that the (implied) subject of the lower verb is coreferential to the subject of the matrix clause. (584)

a.

b.

yer ο taasi [ka dam [a ra] fune] 1 PIS Impf seek [Inf do [3Sg Loc] hole] 'We try to make a hole in it (stone).' a si yedda [ka rjaa ga] 3SgS ImpfNeg consent [Inf eat 3SgO] 'He can't bring himself to eat it.'

In (585) we illustrate the other less common control verbs recorded with infinitival VP complements. They seem to have the same syntax as the verbs in (584). (585)

a.

ay lobbe [ka dam ga] ISgS do-brazenly [Inf do 3SgO] Ί did it as I pleased.' b. yee niya [ka koy] ISgSImpf intend [Inf go] Ί intend to go.' c. no-o wir [ka koy alhoor] 2SgS-Impf plan [Inf go limestone] 'You(Sg) plan to go (for) limestone.'

We get the same construction with faaba 'help' except that there is also a direct object after this verb. 'Help' is semantically unusual in that its syntactic subject and object have joint agentive status in the embedded clause: 'X help Υ [for X&Y] to ...' This joint agency suffices to justify the infinitival complement (586). On the other hand, sendu-ndi 'X encourage (on) Υ [that Υ ...]' does not involve joint agency, and this verb takes a subjunctive complement (§9.6.1).

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs (586)

a faaba ey ka oen 3SgS help ISgO Inf build 'He helped me to build the house.'

309

huu di house Def

9.7.4 Modal serial verbs hima denotes weak obligation ('should', Ought to'), while hin is the basic verb of capability ('can', 'be able to'). These verbs cannot take subjunctive complements. (587)

a.

b.

c.

no-o hima [ka koy alhoor] 2SgS-Impf should [Inf go limestone] 'You ought to go (for) limestone.' boro foo go hin^ [ka goro a maasu] person one Impf can [Inf sit 3Sg amidst] One can sit down inside it.' wala fufu waati baana o hin ka kar nee even cold time rain Impf can Inf strike here 'Even in the winter, rain can fall here.' V—X

As in English, 'can' has both a primary capacitative sense 'is capable of (587b) and a secondary epistemic sense 'be possible' (587c). However, the latter can also be expressed by a-a kuboy (literally, 'it meets') plus subjunctive clause, as in (588). (588)

a-a kuboy [a ma δι kokoy 3SgS-Impf meet [3SgS Subju be chief 'It's possible that he's the chief.'

di] Def]

9.7.5 Aspectual serial verbs The basic clause-internal grammatical apparatus specifies only a simple imperfective vs. (unmarked) perfective distinction. Even this opposition is neutralized in subjunctive clauses. More precise aspectual notions can be expressed by combining the substantive VP with one of the serial verbs listed in (583c) in §9.7.2, above. Most of these serial verbs precede the substantive VP ('begin to VP', 'set about VP-ing', 'have ever VP-ed', 'have already VP-ed', 'keep VP-ing', 'VP habitually', 'proceed to VP', 'have VP-ed recently', 'VP again'). However, intransitive ben 'finish VP-ing' and transitive jinaa 'VP before (s.o.)' follow the substantive VP (589a-b). (589)

a.

b.

a tiisa ga yene [ka ben] 3SgS fix 3SgO ISgDat [Inf end] 'He has finished fixing it for me.' a koy [ka jinaa ni] 3SgS go [Inf precede 2SgO] 'She went before you (did).'

310 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics For ben this ordering is iconically justified by natural temporal sequencing: 1 finished dancing' = Ί danced, then I stopped.' ka jinaa... can also take a subjunctive complement denoting a forestalled event (§9.6.1). We now exemplify the pre-VP serial verbs, beginning with the inceptives baa 'be about to' and sinti 'begin' (590). (590)

a.

b.

nda boro baa [ka Ksa attey if person want [Inf fix tea 'if one is about to prepare tea now* ay sinti [ka doon] ISgS begin [Inf sing] Ί began to sing.'

moreyda] now]

That baa 'want' has a special sense 'be about to' as serial verb is shown by examples with inanimate subjects ('the wall wanted to [=was about to] collapse'). For 'want' plus a subjunctive complement clause, see §9.6.1. Next we have some serial verbs which specify that the core eventuality occurred before the temporal reference point: bey 'know' ('have ever VP-ed'), faati 'have already VP-ed', and kokoro 'have VP-ed recently'. Examples in (591). (591)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

D: aywa, ndooso woo, ni bey well, pick-ax Dem, 2SgS know [ka guna nan_^ kaa^ i-i kar ga]l [Inf see place ΚβΓ 3PlS-Impf hit 3SgO] ? 'Well, this (type of) pick-ax, have you(Sg) ever seen where they forge it?' H: ay guna nan^ kaa^i-i kar ga yaa ISgS see place RefsPlS-Impf hit 3SgO Emph '(Yes) I have seen where they forge it.' ay na bey [ka guna ga] ISgS Neg know [Inf see 3SgO] Ί have never seem him (her, it).' a faati [ka dam gi] 3SgS pass [Inf put 3P1O] 'He (=God) has already determined them.' H: a ma gar a na faati [ka hantum] 3SgS Subju find 3SgS Neg pass [Inf be-written] 'It may be that it (=rain) has not already been written (=fated).' D: a na hantum jinaa 3SgS Neg be-written first 'It hasn't been written yet.' haya nono kaa daame daa rjga kokoro thing it-is Rel elegance Emph SFoc be-recent [ka dam [a ra] moo] [Inf put [3Sg Loc] also] 'It (=mint) is something that [elegance (=fine living)] [focus] has recently been introducing into it (=tea).'

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

311

bey 'know' is used in experiential perfects, which nicely fits its basic sense. As a serial verb it is most common in negatives (Ί have never ...') as in (591b), and questions ('have you ever ...'), as in D's query in (591a). Note that H's response in (59la) omits bey, just as 'ever' is omitted in the corresponding translation. The translation 'have never' in (59 Ib) shows that the negation takes scope over the experiential perfective ('it is not the case that [I have ever seen him]'). faati 'pass' (
a.

ije-keyna di^ o oindi [ka jafa yene] child-small Def Impf remain [Inf cut ISgDat] 'The boy keeps cutting (the stone) for me.' b. maa qga £i wirii di yo kaa dooney what? SFoc be disease Def PI Rel do-usually [ka din farka di yo]l [Inf seize donkey Def PI]? 'What are the diseases that commonly afflict the donkeys?' c. a si yee [ka filla [Ksa haya foo koyne]] 3SgS ImpfNeg return [Inf repeat [do-well thing one again]] 'It (=crumbly limestone) will not again be good for anything.' d. bara ye yee [ka koy [kow kufa di]] must ISgS-Subju return [Inf go [remove curiosity Def)] Ί had to go back to remove (=satisfy) the curiosity.' e. a filla [kar koyne] 3SgS repeat [hit again] 'It began raining again.' f. ni_^ assobon di si filla [hin gi koyne] 2Sg body Def ImpfNeg repeat [master 3P1O again] 'Your body won't overcome them (disease, fatigue, caffeine) again.' g. a si filla [yee [ka marey 3SgS ImpfNeg repeat [return [Inf hurt farka di banda di]] donkey Def back Def]] 'It (=crate) will not again hurt the donkey's back.' h. a si hin^ [ka filla [ka ijaa]] 3SgS ImpfNeg can" [Inf repeat [Inf eat]] 'It (=donkey) can't eat any more.'

312

9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics

cindi 'remain' can be used with imperfective aspect, as in (592a), to indicate present-time continuity. However, this serial verb is especially common with unmarked (perfective) aspect, indicating past habitual ('used to'), dooney can often be glossed 'be accustomed to', but as (592b) shows it need not have a sentient agent and the most appropriate general gloss is 'do usually*. yee 'return' is semantically weak, and even in simple motion contexts it nearly always combines with either Centripetal -kate in the sense 'come back' (§6.3.3), or with another motion verb in a serial construction, like yee ka koy (592d). In the more abstract sense 're-VP, VP again' with a non-motional substantive VP, we generally get either filla 'repeat' by itself (592e-f,h) or a combination of yee and filla in either order (592c,g). filla is notable in that it optionally omits the usual Inf ka before the following substantive VP. ka is absent after filla in (592c,e,g), but present in (592h). Both yee and filla combine easily with a negative in the sense 'not VP again' or 'no longer VP'. In both positive and negative contexts, yee and filla are often reinforced by the adverbial particle koyne 'again' (§1 1.1.5), as in (592c,e-f). duu 'get, earn' as serial verb is best glossed 'proceed to VP' or '(and) then VP'. This hopefully captures the flavor of this combination, which indicates sequencing after the previously described event but also adds a little extra foregrounding (593). (593)

a.

b.

saa foo yo yer o kani^ i se hawey, hal time one PI IPlSImpf sleep 3P1 Dat foodlessly, until ijgi-ye ta ma hin ka qaa, musa kaa kuna 3P1F Top Subju can Inf eat, manner Rel Loc hal i ma duu [ka goy] until 3P1S Subju get [Inf work] 'Sometimes we sleep on an empty stomach, so they (=donkeys)x can eat, in a way (such) that theyx may proceed to work (the next day).' i-i oindi ka kar, i-i cindi ka kar ga 3PlS-Impf remain Inf hit, 3PlS-Impf remain Inf hit 3SgO hal a mee di ma tefe, hal ma hoggu kala, until 3Sg mouth Def Subju be-flat, until 2SgSSubju think that, huri na_^ a kaa, i-i duu [ka siiri-ndi knife Foe 3SgS become, 3PlS-Impf get [Inf bend-Caus a mee hiijka di] ka dam ga nda_^ i-tefe 3Sg mouth two Defj Inf put 3SgO with Absol-flat 'They (=blacksmiths) keep striking, they strike it (=pick-ax) so that its end flattens, so you might think that it's a knife [focus] that it has become; they proceed to bend its two ends, and make it flat.'

In (593a), the point is that the donkeys must be fed so they will be capable of working the next day, even if the donkey driver himself has to starve. The working is subsequent to the eating, and there is some causal connection, but the working is highlighted and is not merely a routine follow-up to the eating. In (593b), the description of the blacksmith's technique is interrupted by the interpolated evaluative comment ('so you might think ... become'), then resumes with a duu ka ... sentence ('they proceed to bend ...').

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313

jow ka ... (cf. jow 'take') means something like 'do energetically', as in (594). jow can also be used with an imperfective indicative complement in the sense 'keep doing (a long time)'; see (503) in §9.5.3. (594)

i jow [ka gaani] 3P1S take [Inf dance] 'They danced energetically.'

9.7.6 Quantifying and negative serial verbs Here we are concerned with serial verbs listed in (583d) in §9.7.2, above, that specify the extent (positive or negative) to which the eventuality in question was realized. As a simple verb, hlsa can mean 'fix, prepare, cook (food), make, make well'. Sometimes it simply denotes production, sometimes it stresses the thoroughness or high quality of the work of production or repair. As a serial verb, the general sense is 'VP very much, VP a lot'. It is common with verbs denoting gradient adjectival qualities, as in (595a), but it also occurs with other kinds of VP denoting measurable activities, as in (595b). (595)

a.

b.

a tiisa [ka sendu] 3SgS do-very [Inf be-difficult] 'It (=food) has become very expensive.' woo ci baana kaa yer tiisa [ka gey-nda—, a oinne] Dem be rain Rel 1 PIS do-very [Inf endure-with—, 3Sg peer] 'This was a rain, which we have gone a very long time without the likes of it.'

A much more colorful and slightly vulgar alternative is laafriiti, which can be used as a serial verb meaning roughly 'VP a hell of a lot'. This stem (from an Arabic noun denoting a type of djinn) is also used after a noun or adjective as an intensifier ('a hell of a N'). The serial verbs denoting failure to accomplish an expected or intended event are jen 'fail at' and morjgo 'have no power over, fail at'. As serial verbs, jen indicates nonperformance of an action, while moqgo (596c) indicates inability to perform the action, jen is most common in the negative 'not fail to VP' (596a) but also occurs in the positive; moggo is usually positive (596b). jen is etymologically related to the noun -jegey 'lack', used as a compound final (§4.6.5). (596)

a.

ay^ jaati si jen [ka mey [a kuna] ISg self ImpfNeg fail [Inf have [3SgLoc]

haya

kaa

yee

bey]

thing Rel ISgSImpf know] Ί myself don't fail to have (=am not without) something therein that I know.'

314 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (596, cont.) b. yer jen ka din ga 1P1S fail Inf catch 3SgO 'We failed to catch it.' c. wire/ woo ta yer moijgo [ka bey haya kaa nono] disease Dem Top 1P1S be-unable [Inf know thing Rel it-is] "This disease,, we have been unable to determine the thing which itx is.'

9.7.7 Motion and time-of-day verbs as serial verbs For the list, see (583e) in §9.7.2, above. The basic motion verbs kaa 'come' and koy 'go* are very common with a following VP, but the usual Inf morpheme ka is not normally used in these combinations. Instead, kaa is extended as kaa ta ... 'come and ...', while koy is almost always immediately followed by the verb of the following VP. Examples in (597).

(597)

a.

no-o

kaa

[ta sinji

ga

hari

di

mee di

ra]

2SgS-Impf come [Inf plant 3SgO water Def mouth Def Loc] 'You(Sg) come and implant it (=millet seedlings) at the edge of the water.'

b. yee

har a

se

a

ma

koy [kate farka

ISgSImpf say 3Sg Dat 3SgS Subjugo Ί (will) tell him to go fetch the donkeys.'

di

yo]

[fetch donkey Def PI]

Aside from koy 'go', the only other serial verb repeatedly documented with zero Inf marker is filla 'repeat' (as serial verb 're-VP, VP again'), which can also take ka, see §9.7.5. As it turns out, koy is well documented with ka in one compound-like combination,koy ka nan... 'go and leave ...' (i.e., 'leave behind ...', 'abandon ...'). One of several textual examples is given in (598). (598)

n si hin^ ka koy [ka nan humbar] 2SgSImpfNeg can Inf go [Inf leave waterbag] 'You(Sg) can't leave the (goatskin) waterbag behind.'

The expression koy ka nan ... 'go and leave ...' is different in one important respect from the more usual type exemplified in 'go fetch' in (597b). In the more usual type, the act of going either precedes the second action ('go fetch') or accompanies it throughout its trajectory ('go sing' = 'go while singing'). In 'go and leave', however, the act of abandoning or leaving behind either immediately precedes the motion, or is coextensive with the onset of motion. The analysis of kaa ta ... 'come and ...' is even more difficult, both morphologically and semantically. The analysis proposed above is that ta is just a special variant of the usual Inf morpheme ka, used only after kaa 'come'. However, kaa ta always seems to be pronounced as a unit (without intervening hesitation

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

315

pauses or phrase-final prosodic patterning), and one could therefore argue that we should recognize kaata as a special allomorph of kaa used in serial-verb function, directly preceding (like koy) the verb of the following substantive VP. A third possible analysis is that the ta is not the Inf morpheme, rather the Put morpheme ta, which elsewhere must follow Impf o~ go and directly precede verbs (§7.2.5). There is actually some justification for this third analysis, since kaa ta ... 'come and ...' often seems to be less a motion construction than a temporal one, indicating a time interval in the future (or following a reference time established by the immediately preceding discourse). In practice, it is difficult to distinguish motional from temporal cases, since in many textual passages both features are plausibly present. However, the sheer frequency of kaa ta ... is an indication that the motional sense is rather watered-down. Consider the passage in (599). (599)

no-o fan barjgu di yo no-o jafa [i dow] di, 2SgS-Impffarm swamp Def PI 2SgS-Impf cut [3P1 sand] Def, no-o kaa [ta duma [i ra] hayni di] 2SgS-Impf come [Inf sow [3P1 Loc] millet Def] 'You(Sg) farm the (inundated) fields; you slash their (=millet plants') ground (with a hoe); you come and sow in them the millet.'

Slashing the ground and sowing millet seeds in the slashed spots are normally done as a single operation, by one person or by a pair (one slashing, the other coming behind to drop the seeds). In this light there seems little point in adding 'come' to 'sow' immediately after a clause with 'slash'. It is possible that a better translation would be '... you will then sow ..." (or '... you then proceed to sow ...'). These observations give some credence to the idea that the ta in kaa ta ... might have some connection to preverbal Put ta. However, kaa ta ... occurs freely in perfective as well as imperfective contexts, as in (600), while preverbal Put ta occurs (elsewhere) only after Impf o - go. (600)

sanda war kaa [ta foo a huu-boro di yo] like 2P1S come [Inf greet 3Sg house-person Def PI] 'Like, you(Pl) came and greeted his relatives.'

While the connection between preverbal Put ta and the similar morpheme in kaa ta ... is intriguing, the evidence is insufficient for a confident morphemic identification. I will therefore continue to gloss ta in kaa ta ... as an Infinitive] allomorph. For substantive VP plus ... ka kaa or ... ka koy, where the motion verb is the second (not first) part of the serial-verb construction, see §9.7.9. Other motion verbs are also sporadically used as serial verbs (with ka). I have not observed too 'arrive' or hun 'leave, go from' in such constructions. For yee 'return', see §9.7.5. Other motion-related verbs occasionally found in serial-verb function arc exemplified in (601).

316 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (601)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

a-a dira [ka tenje ggu] 3SgS-Impf walk [Inf head-for LogoSgO] '(Hex said:) hey walked toward himx.' a-a tun [ka dira] 3SgS-Impf arise [Inf walk] 'He got up and went away.' a-a jur [ka kaa] 3SgS-Impf run [Inf come] 'It (limestone) comes rushing out.' a-a jiti [ka tun] 3SgS-Impf rush [Inf arise] 'It (=crop) rises (=grows) rapidly.' i-i key [ka gaay-gaay gi nee] 3PlS-Impf stop [Inf Rdp-restrain 3P1O here] 'They were stopping to pen them (=sheep) in here.'

Note that some of the combinations in question involve a second verb of motion in the infinitival VP. Such combinations are likely to be semi-frozen and idiomatic, and might be described as compounds, jur 'run', for example, seems to occur as serial verb chiefly in JUT ka kaa 'come running' and jur ka koy 'go running'. Another set of verbs that are commonly combined with a following infinitival VP are verbs denoting actions that take place at particular times of day: biyaa 'VP in early morning', hanna 'VP all night, VP at night, stay up at night VP-ing', and hoy 'VP in the middle of the day'. An example of this construction is (602), and variations with hanna and hoy are also possible. (602)

ay biyaa [ka koy] ISgS do-in-morning [Inf go] Ί went (away) early in the morning.'

When the sense is durative ('spend the daytime VPing'), the time-of-day verb can be used with a juxtaposed imperfective indicative clause; see (504) in §9.5.3, above.

9.7.8 Comparative constructions Comparisons ('better than..', 'more than ...') are often expressed with the verb bisa 'pass'. (At the end of this section we discuss other comparative constructions.) In the simple motional sense 'pass by (and keep going)', bisa is used intransitively or before a PP with postposition ga 'by', as in (603). (603)

no-o bisa [a 2SgS-Impf pass [3Sg 'You(Sg) go past it.'

ga] by]

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

311

In comparisons, other constructions involving bisa are used. The simplest is a transitive structure in which bisa means 'surpass, exceed', as in (604). (604)

wala [fita di gaabi di] ma bisa or [leaf Def strength DefJ Subju pass [sukal di gaabi di] ? [sugar Def power DefJ? '...or that the taste of the tea should exceed the taste of the sugar?'

A more idiomatic translation would be '... or that the flavor of the tea should be stronger than the (flavor of the) sugar?' Note that the lexical head of the subject NP ('strength') must be repeated in the parallel object NP, only the possessors (or compound initials) being changed. More compact constructions not requiring such duplication are also available. In each of the three parallel sentences in the textual passage (605), the comparison involves the extent to which two groups perform certain activities ('the extent to which A VP's exceeds the extent to which B VPV). (605)

a na £i [gomni SSgSNeg be [goodness

a

na^ i-i bisa yet [ka dam]], Foe 3PlS-Impf pass 1P1O [Inf do]],

na ci [saraa na_^ i-i

bisa

yer

[ka saraa]],

3SgSNeg be [alms Foe 3PlS-Impf pass 1P1O [Inf give-alms]], a na oi [haqga na^ i-i bisa yer [ka haqga]] 3SgSNeg be [following Foe 3PlS-Impf pass 1P1O [Inf follow]] 'It isn't goodness [focus] that they surpass us in doing; it isn't alms [focus] that they surpass us in giving; it isn't the practice (of religion) [focus] that they surpass us in practicing.' If we factor out the complicating effects of the nonsubject-focus construction with na, each comparison in (605) is of the general type Ά surpass Β [to VP]' with infinitival VP following the direct object B. It is also possible to put bisa in an infinitival VP following the substantive predication (606). (606)

a-a hlsa ka hin aadama-jje 3SgS-Impf do-a-lot Inf overwhelm person [ka bisa [haya kul]] [Inf exceed [thing all]] 'It really overwhelms humanity, more than anything else (does).'

The first part of (606) is already a strong expression, with hisa 'do a lot, do very much' as a serial verb. The ending ka bisa ... may well have been added as an afterthought, as the free translation suggests. This type of construction, with ka bisa ... following an already complete and self-standing sentence, is favored in superlatives like (606) where the second comparandum is haya kul 'anything', boro kul 'anyone', or a similar expression including kul 'all, any'.

318 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics In such examples with postposed bisa phrase, if the preceding clause has multiple arguments, there may be several readings depending on which argument is construed as parallel to the second comparandum expressed as the direct object of bisa. An example is (607), where the second comparandum 'you' can be taken as parallel to the giver or to the recipient. (607)

a-a noo^ ey qaa [ka bisa ni] 3SgS-Impf give ISgO food [Inf exceed 2SgO] a) 'She gives me more food than you (give me).' b) 'She gives me more food than (she gives) you.'

Still another comparative construction involves a simple clause of the type A VP followed by an instrumental phrase consisting of nda 'with' plus the second comparandum. This construction is most typical of simple intransitive predicates, such as the verbs of adjectival quality in (608). (608)

a.

a boon fada^ ay] 3SgS be-beautiful [with ISg] 'She is more beautiful than I (am).' b. wala Simoo a yekuwa nda ga even cement 3SgS be-strong with 3SgO 'Even cement,, it (=limestone) is stronger than it,.'

In all asymmetrical comparative expressions found in my data, the first comparandum A (i.e., the subject) is the one that exceeds the second comparandum B. That is, they are all of the form Ά surpasses Β' (Ά is or does ... more than B'). There is no (nonnegative) construction in common use which reverses the relationship (Ά is or does ... less than B'); the speaker simply switches subjects and says 'B is or does ... more than A.' This switch is illustrated in (609), the fuller textual passage containing (604), above. "Ol," "O2," and "O3" represent mutually exclusive options. (609)

aywa attey woo nda —, moreyda n jaraa-ndi ga well tea Dem if—, now 2SgS boil-Caus 3SgO, a wane i-boyro di δι 3Sg Poss Absol-good Def be 01 sukal di ma Kisa ka mom [a ra], sugar Def Subju do-a-lot Inf be-felt [3Sg Loc], 02 wala a ma sawa^ [a ra], or 3SgS Subju be-equal [3Sg Loc] 03 wala [fita di gaabi di] ma bisa [sukal di gaabi di] ? or [leaf Def power Def] Subju pass [sugar Def power Def] 'Well, this tea, if you(Sg) now have boiled it, is the best thing for it (01) that the sugar, be very strongly tasted in it (beverage), (02) or that it, be equal in it (beverage), (03) or that the taste of the (tea) leaves exceed that of the sugar,?'

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

319

The three options are of the schematic types (ΟΙ) Ά is more than Β,' (Ο2) Ά equals B,' and (O3) Ά is less than B.' In English, the sequence could be expressed without changing the order of the comparanda, facilitating syntactic reduction: 'should the flavor of the sugar be more than, equal to, or less than that of the tea leaves?' In KCh, however, the O3 option requires reversal of the ordering ('B is more than A') if the bisa construction is adhered to. Another option for Ά is less than B' is a main-clause negation plus an attached infinitival VP with too 'attain, reach, be the equal of, as in (610). Note that the infinitival VP is included in the scope of the negative, otherwise the translation would be Ί equal him in (extent of) not eating.'

(610)

ay si gaa [ka too ga] ISgS ImpfNeg eat [Inf attain 3SgO] Ί do not equal him in eating'. (= Ί eat less than he [does].')

The more basic function of this verb too 'attain' is to express equality of the two comparanda in some respect, but another verb sawa 'be equal* is also possible, too in egalitarian comparative contexts is strictly a transitive verb, but sawa without further derivation is intransitive. Therefore the construction with too is of the type 'X equal Υ (in ...)' (61 la), while that with sawa is of the type 'X and Υ be equal (in ...)' or, with the two comparanda merged into a plural, *theyxy be equal (in ...)' (61 Ib). However, sawa can be transitivized by adding -nda 'with' as a derivational suffix (§6.2.5), resulting in a construction syntactically parallel to that with too (61 Ic). (611)

a.

yee too ga gaabi ISgSImpf attain 3SgO strength Ί am equal to him in strength.' b. yer o sawa jiiri 1P1S Impf be-equal year 'We are of the same age.' c. yee sawa-nda ga njerfu ISgSImpf be-equal-with 3SgO money Ί am equal to him in money (=wealth).'

The three examples in (611) illustrate the use of final bare nouns ('strength', 'year', 'money') playing the Ζ role in 'X and Υ are equal with respect to Z.' This construction is regular, and causes no interpretive problems since a handful of highfrequency nouns are very common in the Ζ role (two others are key 'height' and hinne 'amount, size'). The bare nouns are best thought of as truncated adverbial expressions. We get occasional examples with either an overt Loc postposition (612a-b) or an overt Instr-Comit preposition nda (612c).

320 9 Sentence-level syntax and semantics (612)

a.

yee sawa-nda Jeff [jiiri ra] ISgSImpf be-equal-with J [year Loc] Ί am the same age as Jeff.' b. maa ra no-o too gal what? Loc 2SgS-Impf attain 3SgO 'In (respect to) what are you equal to him?' [cf. (9c)] c. maa, na n bisa ga [nda t / ? what? Foe 2SgS surpass 3SgO [with t ] ? 'What, do you surpass her [in tx ]?'

(613) shows that the same bare-noun complement seen in (611a-c) is also used with bisa. (613) additionally illustrates the use of a universal quantifying PP ('in all the town') in superlative comparisons. (613)

a bisa [koyra di kul] njerfu 3SgS exceed [town Def all] money 'He is the richest (person) in all the town.'

It is also possible for the Z expression in an egalitarian comparison to be a complete VP denoting an eventuality type, just as was the case with asymmetrical bisa comparatives in (605-7). With too, sawa, and sawa-nda, the usual pattern is for the comparative expression to be added as an infinitival VP with Inf ka to the main predication, as in (614), which is therefore structurally parallel to (606-7) rather than (605). (614)

yee mey njerf [ka too ga] ISgSImpf have money [Inf attain 3SgO] Ί have as much money as he (does).'

9.7.9 ka kaa and ka koy after VP or noun In §9.7.7 we showed how kaa 'come' and koy 'go' can be used as serial verbs preceding a substantive VP. It goes without saying that kaa and koy can also occur in substantive VPs following another serial verb like hin 'can' or hima 'should', since substantive VPs are basically open-ended. When kaa and koy occur in substantive VPs, they are understood in their normal lexical sense and are often followed by locational expressions. However, the minimal infinitival VPs ka kaa and ka koy, without further following material, also occur in specialized uses when following an ordinary, substantive VP. A revealing example is (615), where the two occur in parallel. (615)

qgi-ye jow oere [ka koy], rjgi-ye jow cere [ka kaa] LogoPIS take friend [Inf go], LogoPIS take friend [Inf come] '(Hex said:) Theyxy took each other that way, theyxy took each other this way.'

9.7 Infinitival VPs and serial verbs

321

In other words, 'they wrestled each other this way and that.' cere here functions as a reciprocal direct object (§10.8.5-7). In examples like (615), ka kaa and ka koy function like adverbials indicating motion and direction. However, there is no sharp break between the normal lexical sense of kaa and koy and their quasi-adverbial use. ka kaa seems more common than ka koy in quasi-adverbial function following a substantive VP. This is, one presumes, partly because 'come' provides more concrete directional information than 'go', but it may also reflect the fact that putting kaa 'come' before the substantive VP (kaa ta VP) can lead to non-motional interpretations, whereas koy VP has strictly motional sense (§9.7.7). The combination ka kaa 'to come' is also part of a construction involving identical preceding and following temporal nouns. It is illustrated twice in the passage (616). In both instances, the entire X ka kaa X phrase functions as a focalized NP (or adverbial). (616)

[jiiri ka kaa jiiri] na_^ i-i guna hari, [year Inf come year] Foe 3PlS-Impf see rain, [keydiya ka kaa keydiya], na^ i-ί guna hari [wet-season Inf come wet-season], Foe 3PlS-Impf see rain 'Year after year [focus] they see (=experience) rain; wet season after wet season [focus], they see rain.'

9.7.10 (ka) gar ... '(to) find ..." plus indicative clause As noted in §9.5.9, gar 'find' is commonly used with following indicative clause, as in Ί found [(that) they had already left].' The referent functioning as subject of 'find' is rarely the subject of, and is often entirely absent from, the embedded clause. Because of this, ka gar ... 'to find' is a convenient topic-switching device, as in Ί arrived, to find [(that) they ...].' Free English translations of such passages often involve two main clauses, the second beginning with a logical connective (but) or relational adverb (meanwhile). Occasionally the ka is omitted and we get just gar as a kind of topicswitching clause-introducer. (617)

keydiya hirjka wala a-hinja^ o hin wet-season two or Absol-three Impf can gar ma na sow/a wala dee fool find 2SgS Neg replaster even time one? '(You mean to say that) two or three rainy seasons which you have not even replastered (walls, after once?'

ka Inf

dam, be-done,

can go by, during rain damage) even

Chapter 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

10.1 Reported speech and logophoric pronouns By "reported speech" we mean the representation of speech or thought attributed to another person, or to the same speaker in a different time and place. There is no systematic difference between reported speech and reported propositional thought, both being regularly introduced by the quotative verb bar 'say'. 10.1.1 Reported speech and thought We have elsewhere (§9.6.3) discussed jussive reported speech (i.e., reports of imperatives and perhaps other strong deontic modals), which take the form of subjunctive clauses. The expression of reported (and other embedded) interrogatives was discussed in §8.2.5. We are concerned in the present chapter with more general issues involving reported speech, including reported narratives and other assertive (indicative) quotations. Reported thought is often treated exactly like reported speech. In the case of speech, the introductory phrase is commonly of the form Ά said to B: "...'" with bar 'say' and a dative PP ('to B') preceding the quoted material itself. In the case of reported thought, the introductory phrase is just Ά said' with no overt dative PP, though a reflexive Dat occasionally occurs. We will normally use the term "reported speech" loosely to cover both speech and articulate thought. It is true that reported thought can also be expressed in other ways. Verbs like hoqgu ('think, believe, remember') and kaabu (in the sense 'consider') denote mental rather than speech activity. However, such verbs are generally not used to introduce extended articulate quotations, which strongly prefer bar 'say'. Rather, the complement of verbs like hoijgu is normally a simple assertion (e.g., an identificational sentence), and its phrasing is not necessarily attributed to the other party, as in (618). (618)

no-o guna ga moo hal no-o hoηgu 2SgS-Impf see 3SgO also until 2SgS-Impf believe [alhoor nono] [limestone it-is] 'You also look at it (=stone), until you are convinced (that) it is limestone.'

With /jar, on the other hand, the wording (except for adjustments of indexicals) is at least nominally attributed to the original speaker or thinker. It does not appear, though, that there are any differences in the syntactic form of the quoted material; complements of hoqgu and other specifically mental verbs show the same indexical behavior as complements of bar.

10.1 Reported speech and logophoric pronouns

323

The usual distinction between "direct" and "indirect" reported speech is not terribly useful in KCh. The distinction revolves primarily around the verbatim reproduction versus adjustment of indexicals (personal pronouns, spatiotemporal adverbials), and around the retention or omission of the original prosodic features and personal speech characteristics. In KCh, virtually all quotations more than a sentence or two in length show indexical adjustments, above all the use of logophoric pronouns replacing the first person pronouns of the original. On the other hand, even such pronominally adjusted reported speech commonly includes interjections ('ah!'), especially at the onset. Occasionally the introductory quotative expression with bar 'say' is omitted, especially in reported thought. The sudden appearance of logophoric pronouns is then the key indicator that one has jumped into a quotative context.

10.1.2 Logophorics and deictic shifts in reported speech We begin by noting that KCh has no analogue to the tense shifts that typically occur in reported (past) speech in languages like English, where Ί want a mango' is reported as 'she said she wanted a mango.' The basic KCh VP categories are imperfective and (unmarked) perfective aspect, which require no adjustment due to the temporal displacement of reporting past speech. Schematically, Ί Impf want [mango one]' becomes [3Sg say, LogoSg Impf want [mango one]]. The most systematic indexical shift in reported speech is the replacement of original first person pronouns by a type of pronoun known as "logophoric," which is used only for this purpose. In KCh, logophoric pronouns are identical in form to third person reflexive ("3Refl") pronouns. The basic Logo/3ReflSg pronoun is ijgu, with plural counterpart ggu-yo or ggi-yo, the latter variant homophonous to the plural of 3SgF pronoun rjga (§5.8.2, §8.4.2). For analysis of the forms, with further variants, see §3.8.8. Logo/3ReflSg ijgu ~ ηυ is easy to distinguish from 3SgF rjga in most environments. However, both combine with a following Impf o to give phonetic [qgo:]. Our transcriptional system uses underlying representations plus a ligature to indicate that contraction (§3.7.1) has occurred, hence we write qgu^ ο or qga^ ο depending on which pronoun is involved. Readers working through published texts presented with this ligature format should appreciate that each such transcription represents an interpretation of the text fragment in question. On occasion a serious analyst of KCh texts may disagree with the transcriber's interpretation, or conclude that alternative readings are possible. In interlinear glosses, I not only distinguish between "3F* and "Logo/3Refl" forms, I also try to specify logophoric and reflexive functions of the latter. This functional distinction is often straightforward, but in quite a few textual instances the pronoun in question has both functions. For example, in 'shex said [she, would prepare herselfj,' 'herself,' is both 3Refl (within its clause) and Logo (coindexed with the quoted speaker). In ambiguous or doubly-marked cases we will use the noncommittal "Logo/3Refl" label in interlinears. It is also possible to have doubly logophoric pronouns, as in 'she, said [shex would tell him [to hit her,]],' where the final pronoun

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10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

has the same referent as antecedent at two higher levels, but we do not distinguish double from single logophoricity in interlinears. Examples of (nonreflexive) logophoric pronouns are in (619). (619)

a.

i-i bar [ngu-yo gaazwal hay] goo^ a ra, 3PlS-Impfsay [LogoPl diesel cost] be~ 3Sg Loc, maneevir di yo kaa ngu-yo bana kaa Sarzee ga... laborer Def PI Rel LogoPIS pay Rel load 3SgO ... "They (=driversX say, the cost of theirx diesel (fuel) is (included) therein, (and) the (casual) laborersy whomy theyx pay ty, whoy load it *

b. i-i

kaabu ni

moreyda kaa ni

moo goo

3PlS-Impf count 2SgS now that 2SgS also be [rjgu-ye ra], ni δι [ngu-yo^ attanaa foo] [LogoPl Loc], 2SgS be [LogoPl member one] "They (=masons)x will consider you now that (=as though) you arc among themx, (that) you are one of theirx members.' The logophoric pronoun is used in any syntactic position whatever (e.g. possessor, object of PP, subject of embedded relative). See the following section for more on the syntax. Note also that a single quotative clause with har 'say' (or kaabu 'consider, reckon') can bind any number of logophoric pronouns. In fact, a single chunk of reported speech may be a long second-hand story, in which case logophoric pronouns can (in theory) be used throughout the narrative. Logophoric pronouns are not used when the quoted speaker also happens to be the current speaker or hearer. Instead, first or second person pronouns are used in the quoted segment. With first person plural or singular speaker, we get examples like (620a-b). There is no alternative construction.

(620)

a.

b.

yer ο har [i se] [i ma noo [yer se] 1P1S Impf say [3P1 Dat] [3P1S Subju give [1P1 Dat] i-dumb-o] Absol-meager-Adj] 'We tell them to give us the part(s).' ay har [a ma kate yene mootoo di] ISgS say [3SgS Subju give ISgDat motorcycle Def] Ί told him to bring me the motorcycle.'

When the quoted speaker is second person, we likewise usually get a 2Sg or 2P1 pronoun in the quotation (62la). The less common alternative is a "direct" quotation with the original first person pronoun preserved inside the quote (62Ib). In neither case does coreferentiality with the quoted speaker result in logophoric pronouns. (621)

a.

ni har yene [ay ma kata mana sukal 2SgSsay ISgDat [ISgS Subju bring 2SgDat sugar 'You told me to bring you the sugar.'

di] Def]

10.1 Reported speech and logophoric pronouns b.

325

war ο bar filaan ta jiiroo yer ο bey kaa 2P1S Impf say so-and-so Top this-year 1P1S Impf know that a si hin qgu ganda di, SSgSImpfNeg can SReflSg land Def, yer ma kan-^ndi [ije-meyre di yo ga] feewa, 1P1S Subju lie-down-Caus [child-small Def PI by] group-labor, yer ma koy dam a se feewa, 1P1S Subju go do 3Sg Dat group-labor, yer ma koy faaba ga 1P1S Subju go help 3SgO 'You(Pl) (will) say, "(as for) So-and-So,, this year we know that he can't manage his land; let's organize a collective volunteer work party among the youngsters, let's go do a collective volunteer work party for him, let's go help him.'"

Since logophoric pronouns cannot be coindexed with a quoted speaker who is expressed as a first or second person pronoun, Logo should be thought of as a special type of third person pronoun. However, within the quotation itself it has affinities with first person, since Logo is the reported-speech replacement of a direct-speech first person pronoun. The relationship of logophoric pronouns to the classic lst-2nd-3rd persons can also be analysed by studying the normal relative order of two pronouns conjoined by nda 'and, with'; see (157) in §5.11.1. Leaving logophoric pronouns aside for the moment, the ordering hierarchy is 1st > 2nd > "3F' > {3Sg, 3P1}. There are two logical ways, a priori, to fit logophoric pronouns into this system. One would be to take Logo as a relatively high-ranking 3rd person pronoun, preceding ordinary {3Sg, 3P1} and perhaps even "3F* pronouns but following all 1st and 2nd person categories. The other approach would be to treat Logo as an embedded 1st person pronoun, and so locate it hierarchically ahead of 2nd person. In fact, the data show examples of both possible hierarchizations. The textual example (622a) shows Logo ijgu following 2Sg, while the elicited example (622b) shows the opposite ordering. Textual example (622c) shows that Logo precedes ordinary 3rd person pronouns, while the elicited (622d) has Logo following a true 1st person pronoun. (622)

a.

b.

c.

d.

ni nda rjgu... 2Sg and LogoSg ... '(She, said:) "you(Sg) and she,...'" a bar [ngu nda ni] goo kaa 3SgS say [LogoSg and 2SgO] Presentativecome 'She, said that she, and you were coming.' ijgu nda ga... LogoSg and 3SgO ... '(He, said:) "he, and shey...'" a bar mane [ay na ijgu] goo kaa ? 3SgS say 2SgDat [ISgS and LogoSgO] Presentative come? 'Did he, tell you that I and he, are coming?'

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10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

10. l .3 Logophorics and recursive reported speech We may formalize an idealized rule for logophoric pronouns on the basis of the data in the preceding section as (623). (623)

Rule for logophoric pronouns Throughout the scope of a quotation Q attributed to a speaker X (who is neither the speaker nor the addressee of the current speech event), any referent coindexed with X is expressed as a logophoric pronoun.

For the possibility of opting out of logophoric pronouns in long quotations, see the following section. For cases involving sloppy (partial) coreference, as in 'he, said they,y would come' and 'theyxy said shey would come,' see §10.4.2. It is not at all uncommon for an extended quotation to itself include embedded second-order quotations. Suppose we have a sequence of the schematic type (624). (624)

X said to Υ [Q1... Υ said to X [Q2... X ... Υ ... ]].

If we use pronouns for all occurrences of X and Y, this will be expressed as (625). (625)

3SgS say to 3Sg [ Q1 ... 3SgS say to LogoSg [ Q2 ... LogoSg ... LogoSg ... ]].

Consider first that portion of Ql which is external to Q2. In this zone, any mention of X is expressed as LogoSg on the grounds that it is coindexed with the quoted speaker; Υ is expressed in this zone as a simple 3Sg pronoun. Within Q2, which is also part of Ql, any mention of either X or Υ will be expressed as LogoSg, since each is coindexed with a quoted speaker, albeit at different levels. To the listener, the surface structure corresponding to Q2 in (625) is ambiguous, since each LogoSg pronoun in Q2 could correspond to either X or Y. Because Logo is an obligatory category when its conditions are met, the use of ordinary 3Sg or 3P1 pronouns within a quotation specifically indicates that the referent in question is distinct from that of the attributed speaker. Consider (626), a modification of (625) with a 3Sg pronoun in the embedded quotation. (626)

3SgS say to 3Sg [... 3SgS say to LogoSg [... LogoSg ... 3Sg ...]].

Within the embedded quotation, the LogoSg pronoun is again ambiguous, being coindexed either to X or Y. The 3Sg pronoun, however, must denote yet a third referent (neither X nor Y). In (627) we show how LogoSg and 3Sg pronouns interact within a moderately long quotation. In the free gloss, I use masculine 'he' ('him') and neuter 'it' to keep the referents straight, but in KCh there is no gender or animacy distinction in the pronouns. Rather, LogoSg (coindexed to the quoted speaker) and ordinary 3Sg

70.7 Reported speech and logophoric pronouns

327

(specifically not coindexed to the quoted speaker) are used here as indexes. The indexing is exaggerated in this passage by the parallel sentences with roles reversed, but indexing is very important even in less stylistically ornamented quotations. Therefore logophoric pronouns are very important in referential tracking. (627)

a bar saa di kaa [ijgu nda ga] kuboy, 3SgS say timeDef Rel [LogoSg and 3SgO] meet, a dira ka kaa hal a too rjgu doo 3SgS walk Inf come until 3SgS arrive LogoSg chez a sallam rjgu ga rjgu sallam a ga 3SgS greet LogoSg on LogoSgS greet 3Sg on a dam [rjgu kamba ra] kamba 3SgS put [LogoSg hand Loc] hand rjgu dam [a kamba ra] kamba LogoSgS put [3Sg hand Loc] hand a jirfiti rjgu hal rjgu jeesi^ [a ga], 3SgS tug LogoSg until LogoSgS tilt ~ [3Sg on], rjgu jirfiti ga hal a j&esi [ijgu ga] LogoSgS tug 3SgO until 3SgS tilt [LogoSg on] 'He said, when he and it (=dwarf) met, it came walking up to where he was; it greeted him (and) he greeted it; it put a hand in his hand (=shook hands) (and) he put a hand in its hand; it jerked him until he fell over on it (and) he jerked it until it fell over on him.'

In (628) we have an example of an embedded quotation resulting in double LogoSg pronouns with distinct antecedents, as schematized above. The passage is a small part of an extended second-hand narrative Ql attributed to the "x" referent ('he' in the free translation), so all "x" mentions throughout are LogoSg. The brief quotation Q2 within Ql is attributed to the dwarf, the "y" referent ('it' in the free translation), so "y" mentions are LogoSg within Q2 but 3Sg elsewhere. There is also another embedded quotation Q3 attributed to the masculine "x" referent, so "x" mentions in Q3 are doubly logophoric (coindexed to the same speaker X at two distinct quotative levels). The embedded quotations Q2 and Q3 are indented. (628)

Ql

... rjgu siiti ga, a bar [rjgu se] ... LogoSg squeeze 3SgO, 3SgSsay [LogoSgDat] Q2 rjgu ma fur rjgu, LogoSgS Subju release LogoSg, Ql rjgu bar a se LogoSg say 3Sg Dat Q3 abada! bara addeliil di kaa ga na a din never! must reason Def Rel on Foe 3 S g S seize rjgu ta, bara a ma bar ga LogoSg Top,must 3SgS Subju say 3SgO '(Ql)... he, squeezed ity; ity told him, (Q2) that hex should let ity go; (Ql) he, told ity, (Q3) not at all, the reasonz for which ity had seized him,, ity must reveal it^'

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10 Anaphora, logophoncs, and reported speech

The main potential problem for the listener is Q2, which has two LogoSg pronouns with distinct referents. Fortunately, Q2 is a subjunctive clause, suggesting that the original utterance was an imperative ('let me go!'), and from here it is an easy step to infer the respective referents.

10.1.4 Pragmatic functions of logophorics and narrative fade-out In some texts, a long narrative attributed to another speaker is recited. At least in the initial "scenes" of the drama, logophoric pronouns are systematically used for any mention of the quoted speaker, as in the examples given in previous sections. However, in some such texts, the current speaker eventually switches out of the reported-speech mode into a straightforward narrative involving no logophoric pronouns (except in embedded quotations as they arise). This device is reminiscent of films that begin with a "framing" scene which eventually fades out. An old man is sitting in an easy chair in front of a crackling fireplace, his young grandson on his knee. Grandpa starts talking about his youthful adventures as a Barbary pirate, and launches into a particular adventure. The camera wanders to the mantle above the fireplace and zooms in on a painting of Grandpa in his younger days brandishing a cutlass. This dissolves into an actual moving scene with a real pirate and a real cutlass, and off we go for an hour or two of excitement. In the case of KCh, one might well ask why a speaker would abruptly drop logophoric pronouns in a narrative, given their reference-tracking functions described in the preceding section. Two rational explanations come to mind. One is that if the narrative includes numerous embedded quotations (e.g., describing thoughts, conversations, or arguments), we might reach a point of "logophoric clutter" of the sort suggested by our analysis of (628), above. However, there is also another factor at work. In addition to reference-tracking, logophoric pronouns have the function of continuously marking the narrated material as being attributed to another speaker, i.e., as hearsay for which the current speaker does not personally vouch. Of course, it is the initial quotative predication ('Grandpa said, ...') that most directly establishes this deniability, but logophoric pronouns are the only grammatical forms which sustain it throughout the narrative. Dropping logophoric pronouns midway through a narrative therefore does not seriously jeopardize the current speaker's evidential distance, the initial framing having assigned testimonial authority to another speaker. A shift out of Logo constructions is reasonable in the context of telling an ordinary second-hand story with no special interpersonal complications. However, if the current speaker has especially powerful reasons for maintaining his or her distance from the narrative, the Logo system may be retained to the bitter end of the narrative. In my material, I noticed that the text recounting a neighbor's claimed encounter with a leprechaun-like dwarf (Atakurmi), which the speaker himself had never seen, was scrupulous in maintaining logophoric pronouns to the end, rather like the crime-reporting newscaster who puts allegedly in every sentence. This is text 7 in the KCh texts volume, which has footnotes commenting on shifts in logophoric reference.

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

329

10.2 Reflexives and reciprocals Reflexive constructions involve either a possessed form of the noun bomo 'head', or the special SRefl pronouns (identical in form to logophorics). Reciprocal constructions involve the noun cere 'mate, friend, peer' (§10.2.5-6). We now consider them in turn.

10.2.1 Compound reflexives (bomo 'head') The noun bomo 'head' occurs commonly with a possessor in its literal sense. It is also used in slightly extended function to denote one's intellect or consciousness, as in (629) where it is parallel to hunde 'soul, spirit*.

(629)

lawal di

ay

na

bey,

first Def ISgS Neg know, ay na kamba ga [ay hunde di ra] gaa, ISgS Neg hold 3SgO [ISg soul Def Loc] indeed, sanda [ay bomo di kul] nga na jow-kata ga like [ISg head Def all] SFoc Neg take-Centrip3SgO 'At first I didn't know (it was him), I didn't hold him in my soul (=conscious attention) at all; that is to say, [my whole head (=consciousness)] [focus] didn't register it.' As a further extension, possessed forms of bomo are used as composite reflexive pronouns like English forms in -self, as in ay bomo 'myself. These forms occasionally take Def di but usually omit it, though they are semantically definite. Plural counterparts do not take PI morpheme yo, hence yer bomo Ourselves', literally Our head' rather than Our heads'. The usage of bomo reflexives is limited by the existence of an alternative simple reflexive pronoun for the third person (3Refl), discussed in the following two sections. In general, bomo reflexives are more highlighted than the simple reflexives. One might think of the difference as follows: simple reflexives are unstressed anaphoric pronouns coindexed to an antecedent, while the bomo reflexives are introduced as "new" discourse referents that are then explicitly connected to an antecedent. Moreover, taken literally, 'you' and 'your head' are not quite identical. The literal sense of the bomo reflexive as a possessed body part is less fully suppressed, even in reflexive contexts, than in English counterparts. In other words, it may be more accurate to say that 'you' and 'your head' are spatiotemporally inseparable than to say that they are coreferential. Consider the two 2Sg bomo reflexives in (630). The young apprentice who has been working for his master will now be able to work 'with his head' (=on his own); he will bring the master two days' earnings for each days' earnings he 'takes to his head' (=keeps for himself). In both cases, the bomo reflexive is highlighted, as the apprentice comes to fill two previously separate and hierarchically asymmetrical roles. The speaker could, in principle, have used another bomo reflexive in the possessive 'your ones (=donkeys)' but did not. It appears that bomo reflexives are rarely used in

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10 Anaphora, logophoncs, and reported speech

possessor function, perhaps because unnecessary stacked possessives ('the X of the Υ of...') are stylistically awkward (§5.2.2). (630)

a-a 3SgS-Impf ni hin_^ 2SgS carT

[ni

ga]

[2Sg

on]

nda [[a

kamba ni hal han^ kaa, hold 2SgO until day" Rel, ka goy [nda n bomo], Inf work [with ISghead],

farka

di

yo, ni

rjga_^

donkey Def PI, 2Sg

wan di

kate

[a

se]

o

koy goy

SFoc Impf go

yo] nda [n

with [[3Sg Poss Def PI] and [2Sg

no-o

a-a fur 3SgS-Impf release

jaari

wan di

work

yo] kul],

Poss Def PI]

all],

hirjka

2SgS-Impf bring [3Sg Dat] day two no-o kate [[ni bomo] se] jaari foo 2SgS-Impf bring [[2Sg head] Dat] day one 'He (=master) will take care of you(=apprentice) until the day when you can work on your own; he'll release the donkeys into your custody; you will go work both with his ones and with your ones (=donkeys); you'll bring him two days' (work) (and) you'll bring to yourself (=you'11 keep) one day's (work).' Some similar examples are in (631). As (631b) shows, when the antecedent is a third person pronoun (or NP), the corresponding possessive pronoun preceding bomo takes 3Refl form (here 3ReflPl rjgi-ye), obeying the regular rules for use of 3Refl pronouns (see the following sections). (63 Ic) is an apparently similar case, but here rjgi-ye is LogoPl as well as 3RefIPl since the whole passage is part of a quotation. (631)

a.

ni kate [[ni bomo] ga] addaruura 2SgS bring [[2Sg head] on] disadvantage 'You(Sg) have brought a problem on yourself.' b. i si naaney [rjgi-ye bomo] 3P1S ImpfNeg trust [SReflPl head] 'They don't trust themselves.' c. yer guna boro yo kaa har rjgu-ye guna ga, 1P1S see person PI Rel say LogoPIS see 3SgO, rjgu-ye guna ga, rjgi-ye low, rjgi-ye na cerbu ga LogoPIS see 3SgO, LogoPIS hide, LogoPIS Neg show 3SgO [rjgi-ye bomo] hal a bisa rjgu-ye ga [Logo/3ReflPl head] until 3SgS pass LogoPl by 'We found people, whox said they, had seen it (=dwarf); they, had seen it, they, had lain out of sight, they, had not shown themselves, to it, until it went past them,.'

bomo reflexives are especially common after nda 'with', presumably in comitative (rather than instrumental) sense. The type ni... nda n bomo 'you(Sg) ... with your head* (= 'you ... by yourself), illustrated in line 2 of (630), is the standard

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

331

way to emphasize the isolation or unassisted independence of a referent in the context of some eventuality. Consider (632). (632)

a.

b.

yer ta bine nda [yer tun [nda [yer homo]]] kul,... 1P1 Top Top if [1P1S arise [with [1P1 head]]] all, ... 'As for us, if we get up by ourselves,..." a si hasara [n ga] hay a foo nda η δί 3SgS ImpfNeg ruin [2Sg on] thing one if Neg be ni daa [nda [n bomo di]] 2Sg Emph [with [2 S g head DefJ] rjga—, ma jiti [[n bomo] kuna] kul SFoc—, Subju be-startled [[2Sg head] Loc] all 'It (=dwarf) won't hurt anything on you, unless it's you yourself [focus] who—, may be startled inside your head.'

(632a) is literally '... we get up with our head.' In (632b) we have 'you with your head' in subject-focus form, with a further Emph daa. The second n bomo after jiti in (632b) may simply be a literal 'your head' since emotions are being discussed. (For an alternative way to express unassisted activity, seejaati(r) in §8.5.1.) Similar constructions with possessed forms of 'head* occur in Maghrebi Arabic.

10.2.2 Simple reflexive pronouns Leaving aside the rather marked boro reflexives (preceding section), we have another syntactic category of reflexives, the forms of which are given in (633). (633)

Forms of the simple reflexive pronouns a. first and second person: same as the regular forms b. third person: 3ReflSg qgu, 3ReflPl qgu-yo - qgi-yo

The forms of the 3Refl pronouns are completely identical to those of Logo pronouns; for further variants see §3.8.8. For the many speakers who use i rather than u vocalism in the Logo/3RefIPl qgi-yo, this is additionally homophonous to 3P1F. The corresponding singulars are easily distinguished by vocalism (Logo/3ReflSg qgu versus 3SgF rjga) unless contraction occurs with a following Impf o, in which case what we transcribe as rjgu^ ο and nga^o, respectively, are merged as [ggo:]. We have noted before that the Logo/3Refl pronouns are sometimes overdetermined, in that a given mention of a referent is locally reflexive (coindexed with the subject NP) and is additionally coindexed with a quoted speaker (§10.1.2). Consider the referential patterns (634a-c), where X has a constant reference, and their KCh surface realizations schematized in (635a-c). rjgu is 3ReflSg in (635a), and LogoSg in (635b). In (635c), the first ggu is LogoSg, but the second is both LogoSg (coindexed with the attributed source of the quotation) and 3ReflSg (coindexed with the subject of its own clause).

332 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech (634) (635)

a. b. c. a. b. c.

X saw X's mother. X said [X is coming] X said [X saw X's mother]. X see rjgu mother. X say, qgu come. X say, ijgu see ijgu mother.

If we replace any instance of qgu in (635) by 3Sg a, the pronoun is understood as being neither reflexive nor logophoric, i.e., as referentially distinct from X. When 1st or 2nd person pronouns are involved, there is no overt distinction between reflexive and nonreflexive possessor. Compare 3ReflSg qgu in (636a) with ISg ay (636b) and 2Sg ni (636c). (636)

form a. a guna b. ay guna c. ni guna

[qgu fiaa] [ay naa] [ni naa]

translation 'He (Shex) saw his (her)x mother.' Ί saw my mother.' 'You(Sg) saw your mother.'

We could mark the possessors in (636b-c) as [+reflexive], as in (636a), with the proviso that the feature is morphologically vacuous with 1st or 2nd person pronouns. 10.2.3 Reflexive verbs We will cover reflexive syntax fully in §10.2.4. Here we observe that the 3Refl direct object construction [X see 3Refl] (='X saw herself) is highly restricted in KCh. For verbs whose meaning makes it accidental for the same referent to be agent and patient ('see', 'hit', etc.), when this coreferentiality does occur we get the highlighted homo reflexive (for all pronominal persons). However, even bomo reflexives (unlike homo in the literal sense 'head') are uncommon in texts in direct object function. It seems that alternative formulations are preferred, e.g., Ί saw my image' or Ί hit my leg.' There are, however, a number of verbs that occur (some exclusively so) in simple reflexive transitives, with 3Refl or (covertly reflexive) first or second person object pronoun. Those known to me are given in (637). (637)

verb usual gloss barraku 'be welcomed' [intr] here 'flip, change* [intr or tr] haabu 'pack up'[intr];'gather'[tr] Hisa 'fix'[tr];'be made'[intr] jeesi 'put alongside* [tr] jirfiti 'snatch'[tr] kufu 'suds' [noun]; 'lather' [intr, tr] lilendi 'get ready'[intr],'prepare'[tr] taaram 'embellish, beautify' [tr]

gloss as reflexive verb 'be welcomed!' 'convert oneself (into ...)' 'get ready, be packed' 'getready' 'bring oneself alongside' 'wrench oneself away' 'lather up, get frothy' 'get ready' 'beautify oneself

10.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

333

Examples are in (638). lilendi in (638e) has the same gloss with or without the 3Refl pronoun rjgu. (638) a. b. c. d. e. f.

form a here ggu [nda cirow] barraku ni! yer haabu yer wo tiisa warfka koy]! a lilendi (qgu) [ka koy] i warra qgi-yo

translation 'He turned himself [into a bird].' 'Be welcomed! (sg)' 'We got (ourselves) ready.' 'You(Pl) get ready [logo]!' 'She got ready [to go].' 'They threw themselves.'

The use of simple reflexive pronouns like 3Refl in direct-object function is therefore basically limited to verbs where agent-patient merger is common, and indeed where the two roles are not sharply distinguished in the event structure. Even within this semantic type, reflexive transitive verbs are nowhere near as common as in French, Spanish, and other European languages.

10.2.4 Syntax of reflexive pronouns In this section we complete the analysis of the syntactic configurations requiring reflexive pronouns. We will focus on third person constructions, since only 3Refl is overtly distinct from corresponding nonreflexive pronouns. For first and second persons we can imagine covert [+reflexive] marking if we wish, but no empirical issue is involved. We consider in turn simple clauses, then conjoined NPs beginning with (646), then adverbially juxtaposed clauses beginning with (647), then relative clauses beginning with (650), and finally subjunctive clauses beginning with (654). The configuration accounting for most examples of reflexives is of the general type (639). (639)

[s NPX - verb - ... NP, ...] where the first NPX is the subject of the sentence S

We will refer to the subject NPX as the "antecedent," and to the postverbal NPX as the "coindexed NP." If the antecedent succeeds in "binding" the coindexed NP, we get an anaphoric (3Refl) pronoun. We first consider simple cases where the coindexed NP is not part of an embedded clause, and is not a possessor to another NP. This applies to direct objects, objects of postpositions, and complements of prepositions like InstrComit nda 'with'. In these syntactic functions, the coindexed NP is usually realized as a bomo reflexive, in which case the anaphor is expressed as the 3Refl "possessor" of bomo 'head'. In §10.2.1, above, (630) shows instances following Instr-Comit nda (line 2 of KCh text) and preceding Dat postposition se (line 6), while (631b-c) illustrate direct objects, bomo is indeed normal in all of these syntactic functions. The less common alternative is to use simple pronouns, including 3Refl for third person. I have no textual or elicited examples of such pronouns following nda 'with,

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10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

and'. In direct object function, we noted in the preceding section that the construction with simple reflexive pronoun such as 3Refl occurs only with a handful of verbs for which subject-object coreference is very common. Likewise, pronouns such as 3Refl are used instead of homo reflexives in certain PPs where coreference to the subject NP is expectable rather than accidental. The chief example of this is doo 'at (the place of), chez', which occurs very often in combinations like (640) with a motion or locational verb and with a subject NP coreferential to the complement of the postposition. (640)

i koy [qgi-ye doo] 3P1S go [3ReflPl at] 'Theyx went to their, home.' (= 'They went home.')

One can say i koy [ggi-ye bomo doo] "Theyx went to their, own home,' but except in contrastive contexts this phrasing is awkward since it excessively highlights the coreferentiality. A more idiomatic English equivalent (they went home) omits the second pronoun entirely. However, if the possessor of one of these postverbal NPs is coreferential to the subject, this possessor is regularly expressed as a simple reflexive pronoun such as 3Refl. The basic pattern is therefore X [yp Verb ... [X's Y]] for some possessed NP Y. This applies to the bomo reflexives themselves, since they are formally possessed NPs of the type 'X's head'. When a bomo reflexive has a third person antecedent, it takes the form gu bomo ('3ReflSg head'), or its plural rjgi-ye bomo ('3ReflPl head'), an example of the latter being (63 Ib) in §10.2.1. This is just a special case of a more general pattern by which simple reflexive pronouns are strongly preferred to the more highlighted bomo reflexives in possessor function, whether or not the Poss postposition wane is present. Further examples are given in (641), where the possessor is attached to a direct object (641a), a postposition (641b-c), or the complement of preposition nda (64Id). (641)

a.

b.

c.

d

a-a mey [[rjgu wane] kottu yo] 3SgS-Impf have [[3ReflSg Poss] cut PI] 'It (stone), has its, cuts (=notches).' i-i dam ga [ggn-ye huu di ra] 3PlS-Impf put 3SgO [SReflPl house Def Loc] 'They, put it in their, house.' a-a jeeje-kate oiiri di [qgu farka di ga] 3SgS-Impf load-Centrip salt Def [3RefISg donkey Def on] 'He, loads and brings the salt on his, donkey.' a kar ey [nda [ijgu taam di]] 3SgS hit ISgO [with [[3RefISg shoe Def]] 'He, hit me with his, shoes.'

In (642), the 3Refl pronoun is the left conjunct of a conjoined NP which functions as the possessor of a direct object NP ('story').

10.2 Reflexives and reciprocals (642)

335

a na wannasu yene 3SgSNeg speak ISgDat [ggu nda atakurmi woo yo] wannasu [3ReflSgand A Dem PI] story 'He, did not tell me the story of [himself, and these Atakurmis (dwarfs)].'

The antecedent subject NP may bind a coindexed 3Refl pronoun in spite of an intervening serial verb, like dooney 'do usually" in (643). This is consistent with the more general syntactic fusion of serial verbs with the attached substantive VPs. (643)

boro yo goo doodi kaa dooney ka koy-nda person PI be there Rel do-usually Inf go-with [rjgu-yo farka di yo] Olevage [SReflPl donkey Def PI] veterinary-service 'There are people, there who usually take their, donkeys to the veterinarian.'

If the possessor of the subject NP is coindexed with a postverbal NP, we get nonreflexive 3Sg or 3P1 pronoun rather than 3Refl. In other words, the antecedent must be expressed by the lexical head of the subject NP for 3Refl to be applicable. In (644) we show that a subject possessor cannot serve as antecedent for 3Refl. (644)

[a fiaa] noo ga fuula [3 S g mother] give 3SgO hat 'Hisx mother gave himx a hat.'

Moreover, one postverbal NP may not serve as antecedent for a second postverbal NP for purposes of binding a 3Refl pronoun. For example, in patterns like X [y? Verb Υ [[Y's Z] Postp]] and X [yp Verb [Y Postp] [Y's Z]] the second Υ is expressed by nonreflexive pronouns rather than 3Refl, since coindexation with the preceding postverbal Υ does not suffice to bind 3Refl. Examples are in (645). (645)

a.

b.

c.

[a fiaa] din [a ga] [a kaddasu di] [3Sg mother] take [3 S g on] [3 S g paper Def] 'His, mother took from him, his, book.' ay yee-ndi [a se] [a hay si di] ISgSreturn-Caus [3Sg Dat] [3Sg dog Def] Ί returned to him, his, dog.' yer o noo gi [i hlsa hay] 1 PIS Impf give 3P1O [3P1 makingcost] 'We'll give them, their, labor fee.'

The pattern by which an antecedent NP binds the possessor of another NP to its right is relevant not only when the antecedent is a subject NP but also within NP conjunctions of the schematic type 'X and [X's Y]' (§5.11.1-2), for any possessed NP Y. In fact we do get 3Refl pronouns in possessive function in this combination, as in

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10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

(646a,c). However, if the order of the conjuncts is reversed (a dispreferred but elicitable pattern), we get nonreflexive third person instead of 3Refl possessor (646b). (646)

a.

b.

c.

[qga nda [ijgu fiaaj] koy mowti [3SgF and [3ReflSg mother]] go Mopti 'She, and her, mother went to Mopti.' [[a ffaa] nda ga] koy mowti [[3Sg mother] and 3Sg] go Mopti 'Her, mother and she, went to Mopti.' ay guna [ijga nda [ijgu harme di]] ISgS see [3SgF and [3ReflSg brother Def]] Ί saw herx and herx brother.'

Recall in this connection that "conjunction" in KCh is more asymmetrical than in English, especially with regard to pronouns (§5.11.1). This completes our analysis of 3Refl pronouns bound by an antecedent within the same clause (subject NP) or conjoined NP. We now consider the conditions under which 3Refl pronouns can be bound by an antecedent in a preceding or superordinated clause. We begin with the clause juxtapositions described in §9.5.3, where two apparently independent main clauses are directly juxtaposed in such a way that one of them (usually the second) functions in discourse as an adverbial clause: '[you'll pass by dwarf] [you don't know]' = 'you'll pass by a dwarf without realizing it.' The subject of S, is coreferential to the subject of S2 in (647a) and with a postverbal NP in (647b). (647)

a. b.

[s, X passed by] [S2 X didn't see Y] [S1 X passed by] [S2 Υ didn't see X]

The regular outputs are exemplified in (648a-b), respectively. (648)

a.

b.

[a hirow] [a na guna ni] [3SgSenter] [3SgS Neg see 2Sg] 'Hex came in without (himx) seeing you.' [a hirow] [a naa na guna [3SgS enter] [3Sg mother Neg see 'Hex came in without hisx mother seeing himx.'

ga] 3SgO]

In both cases, the coindexed NP is not bound by the subject of S,. We get ordinary 3Sg pronominals rather than 3ReflSg for X in S2. We also get a simple 3Sg S2 subject possessor in (648b). We conclude that cross-clause reflexive binding does not occur in such clause juxtapositions. An apparent counterexample is (649a), repeated from (397a), where the first clause's subject seems to bind the subject of the bracketed second clause. Contrast (649b) where the subject of the second clause is coreferential to a non-subject NP in the first clause.

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals (649)

a.

b.

i na yee-kate 3P1S Neg return-Centrip 'They (=donkeys), haven't (=without loads).' ay guna gi [[i ISgS see 3P1O [3PI Ί saw themx naked,.'

337

[[qgu-ye banda] koon] [[3RefIPl back] bare] come back with their, backs bare gaa] koon] body] bare]

The type (649a) has been verified in elicitation. However, such koon phrases are best analysed as adverbial "small clauses" tightly bound to the preceding VP, since negation and other inflectional categories of the main clause include the koon phrase in their scope; see discussion of the same example as (397a) in §8.5.2. So there is a reason why (649a) has a 3Refl pronoun while (648a-b) have simple 3Sg pronouns. We now turn to relative clauses. Here we need to keep track of two potential antecedents—the head NP (which can play any role in the matrix clause) and the subject NP of the matrix clause. The two are sometimes one and the same ('the man, [who, hit me] has come'), but need not be ('the man, saw the boyy [whoy was eating the mango]'). The head NP is coindexed with some NP within the relative clause. However, this coindexed NP usually appears as zero (we often represent it as a trace, reflecting extraction in the form of the Rel morpheme ka ), rather than as a 3Refl (or other) pronoun. Even when the corerefential NP is expressed in the form of a resumptive pronoun, the pronominal category is nonreflexive 3Sg or 3P1 rather than a 3Refl form (§8.3.2-3, §8.3.8). We disregard cases where the pronoun is 3Refl by virtue of coindexation to a clause-mate antecedent, as in Ί saw the dog, [which, bit its, (own) tail],' where 'its' is expressed in KCh by a 3ReflSg pronoun because of its coindexation with the clause-mate subject (not because of coindexation with the head NP of the relative clause). So coindexation of a relative-clause NP with the head NP does not result in reflexive binding. However, coindexation of a relative-clause NP with the matrixclause subject (if the latter is not also the head NP) does result in its expression as a 3Refl pronoun under most conditions. This is seen in (650). There are several textual examples involving 3Refl pronouns functioning within the relative clause as subject (650a-b) and direct object (650c). However, 3Refl marking within relative clauses, with matrix-subject as antecedent, is not as rigorous as Logo marking in reported speech. In particular, 3Refl marking seems to be avoided in left or right conjuncts, whereupon we get instead a "3F* pronoun as left conjunct (650d) or a simple third person pronoun as right conjunct (650e). 3Refl marking is also disfavored in complements to PPs (650f), though the informant accepted a 3Refl version ending in ggu beene. In assessing the use of 3Refl pronouns in this syntactic context, it is essential to weed out examples like (650g-h), where it can be argued that singular ggu or plural ijgu-yo ~ tjgi-yo has logophoric function.

338 (650)

10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

talka moo go koy dey alhoor bakabaka woo daa pauper also Impf go buy limestone debris Dem Emph allaara hinka-hinka qga moo go den ga nda riyal Rdp-two 3SgF also Impf build 3SgO with [hay kaa [ngu tiisa nda salaqga]] [thing Rel [3ReflSgS make with toilet]] Ά poor manx, however, goes and buys that (mediocre) limestone debris for two riyals a chunk; hex too will build it into a thingy whichy he, has made into an outhouse.' a gar ngu taalibi-ije hinka_^ woo 3SgS find 3ReflSg pupil" two" Dem kaa rjgu nan isa di mee Rel 3ReflSgS leave river Def mouth 'Hex found his, two pupils, whom he, had left on the side of the river.' nda a duu hay kaa tun-ndi ngu koyne if 3SgS get thing Rel arise-Caus 3ReflSg again 'if it (=rain), finds somethingy whichy raises (=reinforces) it, again* Jeff na gar woo di kaa [qga nda X ] kar t J Neg find Dem Def Rel [3SgF and X] hit t 'Jeff, couldn't find that (guy) whomy hex and X (man's name) had hit f r ' ay baba duu huu di kaa ra ISg father get house Def Rel Loc [ay nda ga^] o ta goro [ISg and 3SgO] Impf Put sit 'My father, obtained a ('the') house in which [I and he,] will live.' Jeff na duu ferey di kaa kam [a beene] J Neg get brick Def Rel fall [3 S g on] 'Jeffx couldn't get the brick which fell on himx.' woo se na muso kul kaa addabba ci, bara addama-jje Dem Dat Foe manner all Rel animal be, must human ma bey [muso kaa rjgu hin^ ka duu ga nda] Subju know[manner Rel Logo[?]SgS can Inf get 3SgO with] 'For that reason whatever (species) an animal is, a human, must (certainly) know a wayy in whichy he (she), can get (=catch) it.' a-a taasi bow kaa [ngu nda gaj 3SgS-Impf seek person Rel [Logo[?]Sg and 3SgO] o hin ka Kaa a-foo Impf can Inf become Absol-one 'Hex's looking for a many whoy hex and hey (=the two of themxy) can become alike.' k—<*

The 3Refl pronouns in (650) present no real processing difficulties. The relativeclause subject cases (650a-c) must have their antecedent in the matrix clause, so if the head NP cannot induce reflexive binding, the antecedent must be the matrix subject. The same logic applies to the left conjunct in the relative-clause subject NP in (650e). In (650d), the relative-clause direct object might appear to be ambiguous (coindexation with matrix subject or with relative-clause subject?). However, since clause-internal

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

339

subject-object coindexation is expressed by a homo reflexive object, the simple 3ReflSg object in (650d) must be coindexed with the more distant matrix subject. There is, however, a potentially serious problem involving the types (651a-b). (651)

a. b.

X hit Υ [Rely eat Y's dog] e.g. 'The womanx hit the many whoy ate hisy [own] dog.' X hit Υ [Rely eat X' s dog] e.g. "The womanx hit the many whoy ate her, dog.'

The regular output of (65 la) has a 3Refl possessor for 'dog', on clause-internal grounds (coindexation with the subject of 'eat'). The question then is whether the possessor of 'dog' is also expressed as 3Refl in (65 Ib) on the grounds of coindexation with the more distant matrix subject. If so, (65 la) and (65 Ib) will be indistinguishable on the surface. It appears that long-distance reflexive binding usually does not occur in (65 Ib), so the two constructions generally remain distinct. An example of (65 Ib) is (652). (652)

a-a fa wii bar di kaa jow [a wane njerfu di] 3SgS-Impf Put kill man Def Rel take [3 S g Poss money Def] 'Shex will kill the many whoy took herx money.'

However, apparent long-distance reflexive binding is occasionally attested in spite of the syntactic ambiguity it causes, as in the textual example (653). (653)

mais a-a hin_^ ka Kisa but 3SgS-Impf can Inf make-well hay [kaa bisa [rjgu hasar-ow di]] thing [Rel pass [3ReflSg damage DefJ] 'But it (=rain)x can produce a (good) thingy whichy exceeds (=more than compensates for) itsx harm.'

The prior discourse has been about the damage to homes caused by rain, and (653) changes the subject by shifting the focus to the benefits of rain for farming and herding. As I construe (653), the possessor of 'damage' is 'rain' (i.e., is coindexed with the matrix subject). If so, the syntax parallels that of (652), and we must recognize fluctuation between two possible output types. However, it is conceivable that (653) is structured differently, with 'thing' as the antecedent of the possessor of 'harm', in which case there is no conflict between (652) and (653). It remains to see whether long-distance reflexive binding can occur in combinations of a matrix clause and an attached subjunctive clause. We must first toss out constructions where a /jgu pronoun or its plural counterpart in the subjunctive clause can be explained as Logo rather than 3Refl. This applies to jussive complements, since they involve a verb of speaking ('the manx told me [to look at LogoSgx]'). We must also disregard the obligational construction with bara followed by subjunctive clause, since even if bara is considered to be a clause it has no subject

340 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech NP. This leaves subjunctive clauses with purposive hal 'so that', and those with bilaa 'without', as the most promising data. Consider (654). (654)

a-a hanga a-a dira 3SgS-Impf follow 3SgS-Impf walk hal [a ma soroku [guusu di ra]] until [3SgS Subju fall [pit Def Loc]] 'It (=animal) just kept on walking with the result that it fell into the (hidden) pit.'

Here the subjunctive clause begins with a nonreflexive 3SgS pronoun, in spite of its coindexation with the matrix subject. This and similar examples show that longdistance reflexive binding into a subjunctive clause is not standard. In apparent counterexamples like (655), Logo rather than 3Refl pronouns are probably at hand. (655)

boro foo si yadda person one ImpfNeg consent [[rjgu oere] ma koy ka nan ngu] [[LogoSg friend] Subju go Inf leave LogoSgO] 'No man, will accept that his, friend go (to work) and leave him, behind.'

yadda 'consent' is a verb of thinking or saying, and can reasonably take logophoric pronouns in its propositional complement. Therefore (655) does not challenge the generalization that reflexive binding does not occur between matrix and subjunctive clauses. Likewise, in (656) the subjunctive clause represents the intention of the customers, even though there is no overt quotative verb, so I take its ngi-ye to be LogoPl rather than 3RefIPl. (656)

j kate yene njerfu-korey 3 PI S bring ISgDat silver hal ay ma h"isa ngi-ye se jinde-hiiri until ISgS Subju make LogoPl Dat neck-bead 'They brought me (=goldsmith) some silver, for me to make them a necklace with.'

'Without' clauses are another source for data concerning restrictions on longdistance reflexive binding into subjunctive clauses, and here there is usually no question of logophoric function of the sort seen in (655-56). Consider (657). (657)

boro person bilaa without 'People, them,.'

di yo^o hin^ ka nin ga, Def PI Impf can Inf drink 3SgO, a ma kukur gi 3SgS Subju burn 3 PI Ο are able to drink it (cooled-off tea)y without ity burning

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

341

Here the matrix subject ('people') reappears in the subjunctive clause as the direct object, while the matrix object ('tea') reappears as the subjunctive-clause subject. Both occur in nonreflexive pronominal form, reaffirming our view that reflexive binding is not normal across matrix-subjunctive clause boundaries. We may sum up the basic distribution of homo reflexives, simple reflexive pronouns (like SRefl), and nonreflexive pronouns as in (658). "S" = subject. (658)

antecedent function of coindexed NP clause-mate S direct object dative complement nda complement left conjunct right conjunct clause-mate S possessor of postverbal NP u complement of doo 'chez' matrix S direct object of relative dative complement of relative nda complement of relative matrix S NP in subjunctive clause NP in attached adverbial clause

form of coindexed NP bomo reflexive

simple reflexive

nonreflexive pronoun

10.2.5 Reciprocals The central element in reciprocal constructions is the noun cere 'friend, peer, mate'. There is also a specialized postposition game which occurs chiefly in combination with this noun. There are several nouns meaning 'friend' or the like, most of them indicating a stronger or more specific social and emotional bond than cere. These include baa-koy 'close friend, best friend' (cf. baa 'want', §4.6.5), and several compounds with final -kasine (§4.6.7). cere can be glossed as 'friend' in many contexts but can also mean, less affectively, 'associate, colleague, interacting partner' or the like. In (659a-b) we give examples where cere is clearly used as an ordinary noun, denoting a specific— rather than distributively abstracted—referent (singular or plural). (659)

a.

mere [a oere di yo] kaa se na a wannasu ga but [3Sg friend Def PI] Rel Dat Foe 3SgS speak 3SgO nda [a baa-koy di yo] kaa wannasu ga^ i game and [3Sg friend Def PI] Rel speak 3SgO 3P1 among kaa se a wannasu ga Rel Dat 3SgS speak 3SgO 'Rather, it was [to his friends] [focus] that he told it (=story), and his companions who have told (=repeated) it among them to whom he told it.'

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10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

(659, cont.)

b. [a

dira

di

almaana di

kul] a

öi a-a

taasi

[3Sg walking Def meaning Def all] 3SgS be 3SgS-Impf seek cere, a-a taasi boro kaa [qgu nda gaj friend, 3SgS-Impf seek person Rel [SReflSg and 3SgO] o hin^ ka kaa a-foo Impf can Inf become Absol-one 'The meaning of its (=dwarf s)x walking, it is (that) itx is looking for a companiony; it, is looking for a many whoy hex and hey (=the two of themxy) can become alike.' In (659a), öere has a possessor as well as Def di and PI yo. These accretions arc absent in true reciprocal use. cere is exactly parallel to baa-koy in (659a). In (659b), we have a construction a-a taasi cere 'he seeks a companion' where cere is a bare noun forming an NP by itself. This ordinarily favors a reciprocal reading, but in this case the singular subject and the context clearly indicate a nonreciprocal reading as a simple indefinite (and nonspecific) NP. Transitional between its use as a simple noun 'friend' and true reciprocal uses arc cases where cere functions as predicate nominal after kaa 'become' or oi 'be'. While we might expect PI yo when the subject is plural ('they are friends'), in fact £ere is often bare in this construction, and in some examples the sense is also rather watered down ('they are associated* or 'they are spatiotemporally together'). Examples in (660). (660)

a.

b.

saa kaa [n duma [hayni di yo]] kul time Rel [2SgS plant [millet Def PI]] all no-o sey hayni woo moo, i-kul o ci £ere 2SgS-Impf sow millet Dem also, Absol-all Impf be friend 'When you have (trans-)planted the millet plants, you will sow millet (seed) also; the two (=transplants and new sprouts) are associates (=are interspersed).' wor o kaa cere (yo) 2P1S Impf become friend (PI) 'You(Pl) will become friends.'

cere is already partially grammaticalized in this usage. That the semantics is being stretched is shown by (660a), where the 'friends' are sets of millet plants. When the possessor of 'friend* is indefinite or generic, we can get a construction that remains close to the sense 'friend' but approaches reciprocal function, as in (661). (661)

boro foo si yadda person one ImpfNeg consent [[ggu cere] ma koy ka nan ijgu] [[LogoSg friend] Subju go Inf leave LogoSgO 'No manx will accept that hisx friend go (to work) and leave himx behind.'

70.2 Reflexives and reciprocals

343

Since this was intended as a general statement applying to any member of a set of (male) neighbors or friends, it is very nearly 'none (of them) will accept that any other go ...'. In true reciprocal function, cere is always morphologically unmarked (no possessor, no Def di, no PI yo), and is in a distributive relationship to a semantically multiple antecedent (i.e., a plural, or a grammatically singular NP like 'grass' denoting a collectivity). For example, 'the dogs bit cere' (= 'the dogs bit each other') can be roughly paraphrased as 'for each member Cj of the relevant set DOG, e, bit one or more other members of this set.' The form cere may be associated with any pronominal person. As in other languages, when the set of entities is more than two, it is difficult to formalize the minimum number and distribution of underlying singular-on-singular subevents which are needed to insure the truth of the reciprocal assertion. In practice, as long as a respectable number of the dogs were involved in biting, or trying to bite, one or more other dogs, we can validly use a reciprocal. An example of a true reciprocal is (662). Note that cere occurs in bare form, and that it is a (distributive) anaphor for a plural antecedent. (662)

war o faaba cere 2P1S Impf help friend 'You(Pl) help each other.'

10.2.6 Syntax of reciprocals The plural antecedent is frequently expressed as the subject NP, with cere playing any postverbal NP role, such as direct object (662), complement of postposition (663a), or complement of Instr-Comit preposition nda 'with' (663b). (663)

a.

b.

a ma si koy sey [ka hun /cere ra]] 3SgS Subju ImpfNeg go scatter [Inf leave [friend Loc]] 'so they (=bricks) won't go scatter and get separated from each other' kul c£ aloomur, i-i tun [nda Sere] all be age, 3PlS-Impf arise [with friend] 'They (=plants) are all of (the same) age; they grow up with each other.'

However, the relevant plural referent need not be the subject NP. Especially with Instr-Comit nda (664a), but also sometimes with postpositions (664b), the plural referent functioning as antecedent is expressed as a preceding postverbal NP, usually the direct object. (664c) is a good example of a mass (rather than plural) NP serving as antecedent for reciprocal cere. While 'straw' is here grammatically singular as a mass noun, its actual raw material consists of separate stems (or blades) that need to be "sewn" together, like the rags in (664b).

344 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech (664)

a.

a hamni 3Sg flour no-o 2SgS-Impf

di na no-o maraa nda hayni di Def Foe 2SgS combine with millet Def kulba gi [nda cere] knead 3P1O [with friend]

'Its (=melon seeds') flour [focus) is what you(Sg) combine with the millet (flour); you knead them (two flours) with each other.'

b. no-o täsa-tösa gi no-o taa-taa gi 2SgS-Impf Rdp-prepare 3P1O 2SgS-Impf Rdp-sew 3P1O [cere ga] ka daw ga nda_^ i-woro [friend on] Inf make 3SgO with Absol-thick 'You(Sg) work on them (=rags), you sew them onto each other, to make it (cushion) thick.' c. i-i duu ka taa-taa ga [cere ga] 3PlS-Impf proceed Inf Rdp-sew 3SgO [friend on] "They sew (=braid) it (=straw) together.' Frequently a phrase with cere combined with either Instr-Comit nda or with an abstract Loc postposition can be more freely translated as 'together'. This would work in (663b) ('they grow up together') and in (664a-b). This suggests the possibility that some instances of nda cere are not true instrumental reciprocals, in the set-theoretic definition of reciprocals given above, rather that nda cere can be a kind of quantifying adverb ('together, collectively, as a group'). That this reading is present for some instances of nda cere is strongly suggested by the (admittedly uncommon) occurrence of nda cere as part of NPs, even subject NPs (i.e., in preverbal position, where true instrumental-comitative phrases with nda should not occur), as in (665). (665)

saa di woo di rjga ci feewa woo, time Def Dem Def SFoc be voluntary-work-party Dem, [war^ nda cere daa] rjga^ o guna cere [2P1S with friend Emph] SFoc Impf see friend [war baalici di yo] [2P1 adult-man Def PI] 'Then, this is voluntary collective labor. It is you all together who see each other, you able-bodied men.'

Here war^ nda cere (plus Emph daa) is a fronted focalized NP in subject function. Since a true Instr-Comit prepositional phrase cannot occur in such a position, we might consider taking nda here as the NP conjunction 'and', but this makes no sense since war '2 is plural and already denotes the full set of able-bodied men in question, which is expressed as an afterthought by war baalici di yo 'you adult men'. So there is no alternative to taking nda cere as a quantifying expression, not unlike kul 'all' but emphasizing joint (cooperative) action rather than simple universality. Incidentally, the predicate guna cere 'see each other' (by extension 'compete as rivals for public approval') in the same sentence is a true reciprocal. cere may occur in deverbal nominalizations, preserving its reciprocal functions, as in (666). We hyphenate these compounds.

70.3 Generic and indefinite reference (666)

a.

b.

345

[[[war wane] faaba-oere di] addeliil di] oi maa? [[[2P1 Poss] help-friend DefJ usefulness DefJ be what? 'What is the usefulness of your mutual help?' feewa woo yo ra, guna-cere moo goo^ [a ra] collective-labor Dem PI Loc, see-friend also be [3Sg Loc] 'Those collective work parties, there is also some rivalry involved in it.'

In (666a), faaba cere 'help friend' is nominalized to mean 'mutual assistance'. For the underlying verbal predicate meaning 'help each other', see example (666) in the preceding section. In (666b) above, guna cere 'see friend' (= 'see each other') is likewise nominalized, here focusing on anxiety about being publicly outdone by others (by impressive feats in voluntary work parties to help neighbors). Another example is bey-cere 'getting acquainted' (cf. bey cere 'know each other'), gum-cere (gum 'cover top of) means 'eating bowl with a cover'. The postposition game 'among' occurs chiefly in the phrase nda cere game. For discussion and examples, see §5.9.10. (667) shows avoidance of the overtly reciprocal construction when a singular WHinterrogative is extracted from postverbal position in a comparative (§9.7.8). (667)

a-foo gga horon ndal Absol-which? SFoc be-hot with? 'Which (of them) is more painful (than the other)?'

The problem here is that using reciprocal nda cere 'than friend' (= 'than each other') does not work with a singular subject, even if the referent of this subject NP has not yet been picked out of the pool.

10.3 Generic and indefinite reference 10.3.1 boro 'person* and 2Sg pronouns The primary term used to introduce an indefinite or generic human discourse referent ('someone, anyone') is the bare indefinite noun boro '(a) person*. The initial introduction of such a discourse referent may be in any syntactic position. Among the common sites for an initial introduction are conditional antecedents ('if someone comes, ..." or 'if you see someone, ...'), and the head of a relative clause ('someone who ...'). The latter is expressed as bor kaa ... (§3.8.7). Subsequent mentions of the indefinite referent often take the form of 2Sg pronouns. Generic you is familiar enough from English; what is distinct about KCh is that the introduction is often in the form boro 'a person', with 2Sg then used as a kind of anaphoric pronoun—whether in the same clause or in an embedded or following clause. Some examples combining boro and 2Sg pronoun in generic function are in

346 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech (668); the "free" translations retain the original pronominal categories, so the English is awkward. (668)

a.

boro^ ο m&y [a ra] hay kaa η bar wala ? person Impf have [3Sg Loc] thing Rel 2SgSsay or? 'Does [anyone (=you)], have something which you(Sg), have said about it?' b. saa di boro o hin ka koy, time Def person Impf can Inf go, ni jaari di goy di kul ma kaa bakabaka 1 2 S g day Def work Def all Subju become chunks ? 'So, [someone (=you)]x can go, (with the result that) your, whole day's output may turn out to be (merely) debris?' w

s_*

J

This pattern is very common and may be considered the normal treatment of generic referents in simple passages. However, it is also possible for boro in generic function to be repeated in subsequent mentions as boro or as a 3Sg pronoun. This pattern can be applied when for some reason it is inappropriate to offer the addressee an opportunity to symbolically enter the role of the generic personnage in question, or (more cogently) in passages where the 2Sg category has been pre-empted by a distinct discourse referent, denoting either the addressee as such or a second generic discourse referent. This is the case in the examples in (669). In (669a), 2Sg is initially used to denote the addressee in a (meta-)pragmatic comment, after which 2Sg is used generically. When a second generic discourse referent is introduced as boro 'someone' in 'you call for someone,' it must remain distinct from 2Sg and so is mentioned in 3Sg form (a) in the following subjunctive clause. In (669b), two distinct generic discourse referents (subscripted indices "p" and "t" in the free translation) are introduced as boro. The first is then repeated in 2Sg form, which forces the second to adopt 3Sg agreement (a in a na dam). (669)

a.

woo daa na yee bar mana rjga!, Dem Emph Foe ISgSImpf say 2SgDat yes!, ni dey [[ni wane] hancin], n ta ci 2SgS buy [[2Sg Poss] goat], 2SgS Top be bor kaa koy alhoor, nda n dey [n hancin], person Rel go limestone, if 2SgS buy [2Sg goat], nda n kaati boro a ma koosu ga mana,... if 2SgS call person 3SgS Subju slaughter 3SgO2SgDat, ... 'That's just what I'm telling you(Sg), yes; (when) youx buy your goat—(suppose) you are someone, who, goes (for) limestone; (then) when you, have bought your, goat, if you, call for someoney so that hey slaughter it for you,...'

10.3 Generic and indefinite reference b.

347

boro hay a kul kaa ni jow ni_^ alhawa di kul person thing all Rel 2SgStake 2Sgdesire Def all ni dam ga [gga daa ra] hay kul kaa boro 2SgSput 3SgO [3SgF Emph Loc] thing all Rel person hin ka dam mana [addufiaa huu woo ra], nda a can Inf do 2SgDat [world house Dem Loc] if 3SgS na dam mana haya woo di, a ci mana yaada Neg put 2SgDat thing Dem Def, 3SgS be 2SgDat no-good 'Someonep, anything (e.g., tea)q that you(Sg)p take (as) yourp passionr, you have put it, in that very thingq; no matter what (else), in this world anyonet can do for youp, if he(she), hasn't done for youp that thing,,, it, is of no value to youp.'

The common use of 2Sg agreement for generic boro is syntactically problematic. One possible approach is to argue that there is really a covert initial 2Sg pronoun, so that boro 'person' is a characterization thereof rather than itself representing the first introduction of a new discourse referent. This is an ideal analysis in cases where we have an initial relative clause that seems to function like a conditional antecedent containing an existential predication, as in (670). (670)

ntende foo-foo a-a fatta-ndi ga, a ci allaa ant one-one 3SgS-Impf exit-Caus 3SgO, 3SgS be like jombu-jombu, bor kaa si bey mere, small-bits, person Rel ImpfNeg know but, no-o bisa a ga ni si bey 2SgS-Impf pass 3Sg by 2SgS ImpfNeg know 'Ants individually bring it (=bits of limestone) out; it is like little bits; anyonex whox doesn't know, you(Sg)x will pass by it without yourx knowing.'

The segment glossed here as 'anyone who doesn't know' (relative clause with the generic boro as head NP) would in this context make more sense in English as 'if you are someone who doesn't know.' If we analyse the KCh syntax in this light, we could reconstruct the "deep" structure of this segment as in (671). (671)

nda ni öi bor kaa... if 2SgS be person Rel ... 'if you(Sg) are a person who ...'

Though in (670) this is reduced to just bor kaa ... 'a person who ...,' in the corresponding segment of (669a) we get n ta öi bor kaa ... 'you(Sg) are a person who ...'. For our purposes, the omission of nda 'if is not important, since our concern here is with pronominal agreement. Taking 'someone who ..." in (670) as reduced from 'if you are someone who ...' solves the problem of inconsistent agreement for boro, sometimes 2Sg and sometimes 3Sg. We simply take 2Sg agreement as reflecting the underlying 'if you are ..."

348 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech construction, with later pronominals being anaphoric to the underlying 'you*. 3Sg agreement for boro would apply in all other cases. Alas, assuming the 'if you are ...' underlying structure for cases with 2Sg agreement for boro does not seem to be viable in all instances. It would be difficult to recast (668a) or (668b) with a covert 2Sg pronoun, since here boro is introduced in subject position (rather than as head NP of a relative clause). I conclude, therefore, that we simply have two agreement options for a generic boro, namely 2Sg and 3Sg (the latter allowing occasional repetition of the nominal form boro). When generic boro is head of a relative clause, and its coindexed NP in the relative clause is the subject ('a person, who, runs', 'a person, whox eats fish'), the subject may be realized as zero (i.e. as a trace) as usual for subject relatives, or it may appear in 2Sg form. The two possibilities are shown in the effectively synonymous (672a) and (672b). The decision to shift the subject of 'kill' into 2Sg form, as in (672b) but not (672a), also entails the use of a 2Sg pronominal as possessor of the following direct object 'dog'. Thus (672a) has a 3ReflSg possessor, while (672b) has a (covertly reflexive) 2Sg possessor. Because the subject of 'kill* and the (coindexed) possessor of 'dog' must be pronominalized in a consistent way, when we find a 2Sg pronominal as possessor of 'dog' but not as subject of 'kill', as in (672c), we must adopt an interpretation where bor and 2Sg are noncoreferential. (672)

a.

b.

c.

bor kaa wii rjgu person Rel kill 3ReflSg One, who, has killed his, dog' bor kaa ni wii ni person Rel 2SgS kill 2Sg One, who, you, have killed your, dog' bor kaa wii ni person Rel kill 2Sg One, who, has killed youry dog'

häySi dog

di Def

hay si dog

di Def

haySi dog

di Def

Types (672a) and (672b) both occur even when bor(o) is preceded by a 'if you are ...' phrase, as shown by the textual examples (673a-b). (673a) is a fragment repeated from (669a). (673)

a.

b.

n ta ci bor kaa koy alhoor 2SgS Top be person Rel go limestone 'you are someone, who, goes (for) limestone.' nda ma na oi^ assajaa ma na £i bar, if 2SgSNeg be hero 2SgS Neg be man, kaa no-o bey yenje Rel 2SgS-Impfknow fighting 'If you(Sg) aren't a warrior, if you aren't a man, who, (you), know (=have experience in) fighting.'

The sequence of coreferential boro 'someone' and 2Sg pronoun ni may occur in conjunctions and disjunctions (674).

70.3 Generic and indefinite reference

(674)

349

[[boro foo wane dam] [wala [n kow]] kuna [[person one Poss doing] [or [2Sg remove]] in 'in someone/s putting in or your, taking out'

10.3.2 Indefinite human a koy di The expression a koy di literally means something like 'his owner, boss', cf. yerkoy 'God' (<*yer koy Our Lord'), a koy di is used, however, to refer back to a previously introduced indefinite or generic human referent, generally in a preceding sentence (or conditional antecedent). It is only moderately common since 3Sg a can always be used in such contexts; cf. also generic 2Sg discussed in the preceding section. I gloss a koy di freely as e.g. 'the fellow, the guy" but it has no derogatory sense. In (675), it is hard to say whether a koy diis used in its literal sense 'its owner' or as a discourse anaphor; this ambiguity is helpful in understanding the origin of the anaphoric usage. (675)

bor kaa har tjgu si hin^ ka noo ga yer se, person Rel say LogoSgS ImpfNegcan Inf give 3SgO 1P1 Dat, ndayer waafaku yer ο dey ga [a koy di ga], if 1P1S agree IPlSImpf buy 3SgO [3Sg boss Def on], yer ο koy-nda ga garaasa di ye doo 1P1S Impf go-with 3SgO smith Def PI at 'Someone,, whox says he cannot give it (=spare part)z to us, if we^ (eventually) come to an agreement, wey'll buy itz from the owner, (or: the guyj (and) wey'll take i^ to the blacksmiths.'

(676) is a more typical indefinite example. Here there are two occurrences of a koy di, each denoting an indefinite human referent introduced just previously as bor(o) 'a person'. The dwarf (a kind of djinn) is the main protagonist of the discussion, and a koy di is used to denote any generic human referent who might have had the misfortune of tangling with it. Because of the generic quality, the issue whether the two instances of a koy di (both uttered by H across an intervening echoic confirmation by D) are coreferential is moot.

350 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech

(676)

D: saa di ma na bey l:a mom bor kaa, time Def 2SgS Neg know Inf hear person Rel, rjga rjga kar ganda7 3SgF SFoc hit ground? 'So, haven't you(Sg) ever heard (of) anyone,, whomx it (dwarf) knocked down?' H: a! woo ta wala a kar bow ganda moo ah! Dem Top even 3SgS hit person ground also [a koy di] si kaa ta bar ga [3Sgboss Def] ImpfNeg come Inf say 3SgO 'Ah! That (dwarf), even if it knocked a person, down, the guyx wouldn't come and say (=report) it.' D: a si bar ga 3SgS ImpfNeg say 3SgO 'He won't say it.' H: a-a Sendu bor kaa a kar ganda kaa 3SgS-Impf be-difficult person Rel 3SgS hit ground that [a koy di] mee go hin^ ka £ii ga, [3Sgboss Def] mouth Impf caiT Inf speak 3SgO, [maa se] jiti si nan ga [what? Dat] fright ImpfNeg leave 3SgO 'It's rare, one, whomx it (=dwarf) has knocked down, that the guyx's mouth would be able to say (=report) it, because (hisj fright won't leave him,.'

10.4 Sloppy (partial) coreferentiality "Sloppy" coreferentiality or coindexation is present when two NPs denote, respectively, a set and one of this set's proper subsets. Thus 'we' and T are in a sloppy relationship, since the denotation of the former strictly contains that of the latter (the denotion of T is a strict subset of the denotation of 'we'). The combination of such sloppily coreferential NPs poses problems, since some grammatical mechanisms are based on the coreferential-noncoreferential distinction. This applies to reflexive constructions (antecedent is usually the clause-mate subject NP), logophoric pronouns (antecedent is the quoted speaker), and relative clauses (antecedent is the head NP). In the following sections, a subscripted index "xy" indicates that the denotation in question strictly contains that represented by "x" or "y," as in 'wexy' vis-a-vis Ίχ'. In theory, we should also consider cases involving the complex intersection of two overlapping sets, e.g., 'theyxy' and 'theyyz', where only "y" is shared.

10.4 Sloppy (partial) coreferentiality

351

10.4.1 Sloppy coreferentiality in reflexives We first consider cases of the type 'she, went to theirxy house' and 'Shex brought it for themxy' involving a subject NP whose denotation is a strict subset of that of a postverbal possessor or postpositional complement. In such constructions, the partially coindexed NP is expressed as SReflPl, as in (677). This construction is quite common, cf. §4.1.3.

(677)

a. b.

c.

a

koy [ggi-ye

doo]

3SgS go [3ReflPl at] 'Shex went to theirxy house.' a kate ga [ijgi-ye se] 3SgS bring 3SgO [3ReflPl Dat] 'Shex brought it for themxy.' a koosu [ggi-ye feeji di] 3SgS slaughter [3ReflPl sheep DefJ 'Shex slaughtered theirxy sheep.'

The basic principle here can be summarized as: '3ReflSg + 3Sg (or 3P1) —> 3ReflPl.' Note that the morphologically simple 3ReflPl (not a bomo reflexive) is used. We have seen earlier that ordinary first and second person pronouns are used in syntactic contexts requiring 3Refl pronouns for third person reference. It is therefore predictable that 1P1 and 2P1 can be used in examples comparable to (677a-c), as in (678). (678)

ay kate ga ISgS bring 3SgO Ίχ brought it for usxy.'

yer se 1P1 Dat

When the set-inclusion relationship is reversed, so that the denotation of the antecedent contains that of the coindexed NP, we get nonreflexive pronouns. We see this clearly in (679a) with 3Sg rather than 3ReflSg dative, and we infer from this that the ISg in (679b) likewise has no reflexive feature (even covertly). (679)

a.

b.

/ kate ga [a se] 3P1S bring 3SgO [3 S g Dat] 'Theyxy brought it for himx.' yer kate ga yene 1P1S bring 3SgO ISgDat 'We brought it for me.'

Attempts to elicit the complex-intersection type 'you(Pl)xy went to theiryz house' succeeded only in confusing informants. However, if reflexive pronouns are not used in the simpler type (679) it seems quite certain that they would not be used in complex-intersection cases.

352 10 Anaphora, logophorics, and reported speech 10.4.2 Sloppy coreferentiality in logophorics The principle '3ReflSg + 3Sg3Pl —> 3ReflPl' (preceding section) can be adapted to logophoric pronouns, hence 'LogoSg + 3Sg3Pl —> LogoPl.' Quotations are usually attributed to a single speaker, in which case any instance of 'we' in the original utterance will show up in reported speech as LogoPl. Examples in (680). (680)

a.

a hur /jgu-yo^ o koy 3SgS say LogoPIS Impf go 'Hex said theyxy would go to town.' b. a bar i guna qgu-yo 3SgS say 3P1S see LogoPIO 'Hex said that theyz had seen themxy.'

koyra town

The original utterances would have been 'we will go to town' and 'they saw us.' The inverted pattern with plural speaker and a subsequent singular referent is expressed with nonlogophoric 3Sg pronoun, as in (681).

(681)

/ har a-a ta kaa 3 PI S say 3SgS-Impf Put come 'Theyxy said that hex will come.'

10.4.3 Sloppy coreference in relative clauses When the denotation of the head NP (NPX) is strictly included in that of a partially coindexed NP (NPxy) in the relative clause, the latter is expressed by a conjunction (one conjunct of which corresponds to NPX) attached to Rel kaa. The conjunct coindexed with NPX takes nonreflexive pronominal form. The conjoined NP may then be "resumed" by the appropriate plural pronoun within the relative clause proper, as in (682). (682)

saa di no-o soo boro di yo kaa time Def 2SgS-Impf pour person Def PI Rel [ni nda gi] war gar-ndi, [2SgS and 3P1] 2P1S find-Mediop, naggu woo di ra alwakati woo di place Dem Def Loc time Dem Def 'Then, you(Sg)x pour (for) the peopley whoy you(Sg)x and theyy, you(Pl)xy have been found in that place (at) that time.'

The head NP is the plural boro di yo 'the people/. The 2P1 subject of the relative clause strictly includes the denotation of 'the people/, so we get ni nda gi 'you(Sg) and they/ with nonreflexive 3P1 pronoun. The conjunction ni nda gi is then recapitulated in the form of 2P1 war.

Chapter 11 Semantic topics

11.1 Spatiotemporal structures 11.1.1 Spatial deictics Basic deictic adverbs are in (683). For discussion of the forms see §4.2.3. (683)

a. b. c.

nee doodi-dooti henta

'here' 'there* (anaphoric) Over there' (deictic)

doodi- dootiis the anaphoric 'there* adverb. That is, it denotes a location that has been established by the prior discourse or is otherwise cognitively accessible. For example, Ί went to Gaox, but I didn't stay there/ would use doodi ~ dooti since it refers back to the location established by the earlier, more concrete LP (location phrase) 'Gao*. doodi- dooti is normally referential, but in some contexts it shows signs of partial bleaching and verges on pro forma status (§7.1.2). hentu is a deictic 'there* adverbial which introduces a new location as discourse referent. It must be used instead of doodi ~ dooti for nonproximal ostensive reference (pointing out a location). nee is the basic proximal 'here' adverbial. Since every speech event presupposes a 'here' space, the distinction between deixis and anaphora is blurred with this adverbial. Moreover, nee is quite often repeated in parallel phrases, ostensively denoting two or more locations: 'the cow stepped herC[, and here2, and here3.' nee is also often used to denote a displaced 'here* from the perspective of an agent in a narrative. Two important modifiers of deictic locative adverbials are Emphatic daa and Approximative here. Locative postpositions ra and kuna cannot be added directly to nee, doodi - dooti, or hentu, but can be added when daa intervenes. See §4.2.4.

11.1.2 Semantics of spatial adpositions The spatial adpositions can be treated in three groups, as shown in (684), below. Only their spatial senses are given in the glosses. The prepositions in (684c) are primarily temporal rather than spatial, and will be analysed in §11.1.5, below. In this section we consider first the concrete postpositions in (684b), then the more abstract ones in (684a). Most of the postpositions in (684b) are transparently related to body-part nouns; see §5.9.7 for details.

354

11 Semantic topics

(684)

form a. ra kuna ga doo b. banda beene Sire jine jere maasu tenje- tanje game c. jaa hal

gloss 'in' (Locative) 'in' (Locative) 'by, from, out of 'at (the place of), chez' 'behind, among, alongside' 'above, over, on top of 'under' 'in front of, on this side of 'beside, next to' 'inside, amid' 'facing' 'between' 'starting from' 'all the way to'

pre- or postposition? post " " post " " " " " " " pre

The semantic subsystem in (684b) can be said to treat the reference object as an idealized hollow cube, enclosing an interior space and having six external sides. The PPs denote the region in which the secondary entity or position is located. This region is projected outward from the relevant side of the cube, except of course for 'inside'. The cube is oriented in three-dimensional space, one dimension being vertical. One of the horizontal sides is privileged as the front. The front is intrinsic to the reference object if the latter has a built-in face (person, house, vehicle, etc.). Either jine 'in front of or tenje 'facing' may be used to denote a location defined by this face, with jine much more common. If the reference object has no built-in face, a front may be superimposed by the relationship between reference object (e.g., a tree) and the secondary entity or position ('in front of the tree' = On this side of the tree'). In this case, jine (but not tenje) may be used. The postpositions/ere in the sense 'beside' differs slightly from the others in that it denotes the area defined by either of two sides of the "cube," namely the left and right horizontal sides adjoining the front. In contexts where the front-back-side opposition is inapplicable, jere 'beside' may be used for any location near the reference object and neither above nor below it. banda 'behind' rather than jere 'beside' is the preferred postposition indicating accompaniment (i.e., socially significant co-presence). In this context, banda is best glossed 'among, alongside, along with', as in (685), since the precise orientational relationship of the secondary entity to the reference object is moot. (685)

yee jow ay kuumu foo ISgS-Impf take ISg hoe one Ί take one of my hoes with me.'

[ay banda] [ISg behind]

The connection between 'behind' and 'along with* is generalized from constructions with the verb hazjga 'follow', which takes a PP with banda 'after, behind' as its complement. This is used not only in the literal motion sense, but also to denote interpersonal subordination (child to parent, apprentice to master). This

11.1 Spatiotemporal structures

355

construction with har/ga can even be applied to temporary possession of an inanimate object, as in (686), from the same text as (685). (686)

kuumu mere kuumu ta gaa [saa kul] hoe but hoe Top Emph [time all] a-a boon a ma haqga ni banda 3SgS-Impf be-good 3SgS Subju follow 2Sg after 'But a hoex, speaking of a hoe,, it's always good that itx be with you.'

The relevant part of (686) is basically of the type 'hoe follow behind me.' In (685), 'hoe' is direct object of 'take', so there is no (overt) verb 'follow'. However, one could argue that the surface form of (685) conceals a covert 'hoe follow behind me' (or 'hoe MOVE behind me* with an abstract motion verb); perhaps jow 'take' could be decomposed into CAUSE and MOVE components. With an inanimate referent like 'hoe', the pattern 'hoe follow behind X' is less common than another construction for temporary possession, 'hoe be by X' with postposition ga 'by* (§5.9.5, §7.1.4). Nonetheless, examples like (686) are instructive in analysing the use of banda 'behind' to indicate accompaniment in (685). The more abstract and therefore more interesting postpositions are those in (684a). The most straightforward of them is doo 'at (the place of), chez'. For the form and etymology see §5.9.6. This postposition is most often used to denote the dwelling of a person or persons: yer^ doo 'at our house' (French chez nous). We may note parenthetically that in this usage, the NP or pronoun in question generally takes plural form, denoting the full set of inhabitants (§4.1.3). Among the abstract postpositions in (684a), the semantic distinction between stationary locational ('in, at, on'), allative ('to'), and ablative ('from') is largely irrelevant, as we will see. Instead, these distinctions are expressed (if at all) by verbs or inferred from context. One manifestation of this is that X doo can be glossed, in different contexts, 'at the place of X', 'to (into) the place of X', or 'from (out of) the place of X'. These glosses are suggested, respectively, by the verbs goro 'sit, stay', too 'arrive', and fatta 'exit', for example. doo is not limited to dwellings, and may be used to define a zone around and immediately adjacent to a reference object. Examples ('around the limestone block' and 'to the place where the drivers are') are given in §5.9.6. Additional examples of doo include (46b) in §3.8.2, (54a) in §4.1.1, and (57a-b) in §4.1.3. For the forms and etymologies of Loc ra and kuna, see §5.9.4. ra is much more common than kuna; in one Timbuktu textual corpus checked there were 262 tokens of ra versus 40 of kuna, which works out to 87% versus 13%. There appears to be little or no semantic difference between the two. Often, as in (687), a single textual passage uses first one and then the other postposition with the same referent in the same spatial sense, suggesting that they are primarily stylistic variants. Usually ra comes first, with the less common (and therefore stylistically marked) kuna following.

356 (687)

U Semantic topics D: woo di^ ο koy sawa-nda marje [seefaa woo raj? Dem Def Impf go equal how-much? [CFA Dem Loc]? "How much is that worth in (=converted into) CFA (currency)?' M: [seefaa di daa kuna] a δι allaara iiye nda jere [CFA Def Emph Loc] 3SgS be riyal 7 and part '[In CFA (currency)] it is (worth) seven and a half riyals.'

There are probably some combinations in which the frequency ratio of ra to kuna diverges from the overall norm. For example, Rel kaa seems to take kuna about as often as ra. But these local stylistic idiosyncrasies do not seem to be based on semantic differences. The semantic range of these Loc postpositions is quite broad. The core can be expressed as 'in (container or field)'. Representative contextual glosses are stationary locational 'at, in', allative 'into' (with motion verbs), and ablative 'from, away from, out of (with ablative verbs like fatta 'exit', hun 'leave', and kow 'take out'). A few examples are in (688). (688)

a.

b.

c.

d.

maa tjga goo [n huu di ra]t what? SFoc be [2Sg house Def Loc] 'What is there in your house?' nda^ i dam ga [hari di ra] kul,... if ~ 3P1S put 3SgO [water Def Loc] all, ... 'when they have put it (metal) in water,...' a kow [kusu di ra] hari di 3SgS take-out [jug Def Loc] water Def 'She took the water out of the jug.' a dey ga [qgu jiiba di ra] 3Sg buy 3SgO [SReflSg pocket Def Loc] 'He paid for it out of his own pocket.'

As in other languages, the core spatial sense (location in a container or field) has many "metaphorical" extensions as the "container" or "field" becomes abstract. This is exemplified in (687) in connection with currency. Other examples involve times ("at the harvest [time]"), verbal abstractions ("in coming"), and so forth. For the pattern "be [VERB Loc]" with durative or progressive sense, see the end of §7.2.3. When associated with an NP (not necessarily contiguous), such as a bare plural, a mass noun, or a quantified NP, Loc PPs are often partitive in function, as in (689). (689)

n si hin^ ka koy ka nan [[i kuna] foo] 2SgS ImpfNeg can" Inf go Inf leave [[3P1 Loc] one] 'You can't go and leave any one of them (tools) behind.'

Loc postpositions are sometimes omitted after nouns that function syntactically as LPs (and semantically as locative, allative, or ablative phrases). This is consistent with the fact that KCh verbs express most of the locative, allative, and ablative relationships. Place names like bamako (capital of Mali) usually occur without

11.1 Spatiotemporal structures

357

adpositions in these semantic functions, the spatial nuance being inferrable from the verb. Certain nouns optionally occur in bare form in similar adverbial functions: huu 'home', koyra 'town, city', yoobu 'market', ganji 'wilderness, bush', isa 'river'. The trickiest of the abstract postpositions is probably ga. Its primary spatial senses are On* and 'by, along'. Like other spatials, it may be (stationary) locative, allative, or ablative depending on the context and especially on the verb. (690) is a clear case of On' or Onto' (limestone blocks loaded on the back of the donkeys). (690)

no-o dira ka haijga musoo di 2SgS-Impfwalk Inf follow thus Def hal ma duu haya kaa ni dam-dam i ga, until 2SgSSubju get thing Rel 2SgS put-Rdp 3P1 on, ma kaa-nda ga 2SgSSubju come-with 3SgO 'You'll keep walking around like that, until you get something to put (=load) onto them (donkeys) and you bring it (home).'

A number of abstract uses of ga are natural extensions of On' and have parallels with English on. The construction Υ goo [Xga], lit. Ύ be on X', is used for custody or temporary possession (§5.9.5), cf. English / have five dollars on me. The examples in (691) can also be translated with English On*. In (69la), the afflictions are a burden put on people. In (69Ib), tea's original raison d'etre was to counter fatigue. (691)

a.

b.

woo yo kul i har Dem PI all 3P1S say attey daa qga^ ο dam ga boro ga tea Emph SFoc Impf put 3SgS person on 'All those things (dizzy spells, etc.), they said it's tea [focus] that put them on people.' attey si mey haya kul kaa ga na a doo tea ImpfNeg have thing all Rel on Foe 3SgS originate kala faraa except fatigue Tea has nothing on which [focus] it was originally based except fatigue.'

ga is often translatable as Out of, from', for example with kow 'take out, remove'. Recall that apparent ablative glosses of other postpositions like doo, ra, and kuna turn out to be translation artifacts, and that the ablative element is really attributable to a verb ('exit', 'leave', 'take out'). Consider (692). (692)

no-o musey ga 2SgS-Impf rub 3SgO hal a ma kow [a ga] dow di until 3SgS Subju take-out [3Sg from] sand Def 'You rub it (melon seeds) until it (=this) removes the dirt from it.'

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The ga in question is of course the postposition in a ga, not the 3SgO clitic. Since kow 'take out, remove' has a built-in ablative component, it is possible to take ga here as locative On', cf. 'there is some dirt on the melon seeds.' ga is apparently glossable as 'by' in connection with the verb bisa 'pass' (693a), and as 'in' or 'into' in (693b). (693)

a. no-o bisa [a ga] ni si bey 2SgS-Impf pass [3Sg by] 2SgS ImpfNeg know 'You'll pass by it without knowing.' b. yee kar [a ga] guusu ISgSImpfhit [3Sg by] hole Ί knock a hole in it (stone).'

However, the English glosses are misleading, and to understand these examples we need to look carefully at the semantics of the verbs, bisa 'pass' in (693a) puts more focus than does English pass on the portion of the trajectory where the referent of the subject NP moves away from the reference object. By contrast, English pass tends to focus on the moment of closest proximity (except in temporal contexts). Therefore by is the appropriate preposition in English, but a postposition which can mean 'away from' is most appropriate for KCh. In (693b), the problem is that English treats a hole as something put into the reference object (here, a stone), whereas KCh treats guusu 'concave hole, pit' (distinct from fane 'hole, perforation') as something excavated out of the reference object. Thus in both (693a) and (693b) ga is compatible with a literal gloss Out of.

11.1.3 Motion and path structure Although spatial adverbials, especially postpositional phrases, play a role in expressing path structure, verbs have a greater role in this respect than in English. Let us take as our prototype an event consisting of a person going from location A to location B. The major lexical resources for describing this event or some portion of it are shown in (694). (694)

verb kaa koy bisa dira too hun

gloss 'come' 'go' 'pass by, proceed further' 'be in motion, set off 'arrive (at), reach' 'leave, depart from (place)'

other senses 'become' — 'surpass, be or do more (than ...)' 'walk, travel' 'be equal; suffice' 'come off, (e.g. leaf) fall off'

The verbs kaa and koy resemble their primary English glosses in that kaa denotes motion toward a deictic center (usually the "here" of the speech event), while koy is used for motion in any other direction (or for motion when no deictic center is active). kaa is often used to denote an undifferentiated complete trajectory including final

//./ Spatiotemporal structures

359

arrival, and is optionally accompanied by the deictic adverb nee, as in JM kaa ( nee ) 'you(Sg) have come (here).' The situation with koy is subtly different. With no overt Locational Phrase (LP), as in simple ; koy 'they went,' the emphasis is on the fact of going (as opposed to not going, i.e., staying). The endpoint is therefore not highlighted. To denote a completed trajectory including arrival at an endpoint, the preferred expression is a VP with too 'arrive' (or hirow 'enter') plus the overt LP. This means that 'they went to B' may have to be expressed in a two-clause sequence in KCh, 'they went (koy), they arrived(foo)atB.' An exception is that koy rather than too is regular before an LP denoting a generic zone type, or an activity implying such a zone (see §5.12 for an inventory). Examples are koy ganji 'go into the wilderness (bush)' and koy yoobu 'go to market'. Both kaa and koy are extremely common as serial verbs with a following infinitival VP of any type. Instead of the usual Inf[initive] ka between serial verb and infinitival VP, after kaa we get a special form ta, and after koy in most cases no Inf morpheme appears (§9.7.7). kaa and koy may also be appended in the form of infinitival VPs (ka kaa, ka koy) to a preceding VP, and in some idioms these sequences may also follow an NP (§9.7.9). The verb hun 'leave, depart from' is very important since KCh has no postposition translatable as 'from' in the directional sense. Therefore Ί came from A' must be translated by a two-VP sequence of the type Ί left (hun) A to come (kaa) here.' To express noncentripetal Ί went from A to B,' one says Ί left (hun) A to go (koy) to B.' This construction can also be used to indicate in motional terms the extent of a space, defined as 'leaving' (=starting at) one point and 'going' to another, as in (695). (695)

farru foo woo daa kaa hun nee ka koy, lot one Dem Emph Rel leave here Inf go, saarey woo yo nda cere game cemetery Dem PI with friend among 'this same lot which goes from here to (a point) between the (two) cemeteries.'

bisa 'pass by, proceed further', is appropriate when location A is an intermediate point in a longer trajectory. It does not matter whether the entity in motion stops at A before proceeding farther. The emphasis is on the continuation of the trajectory rather than the proximity of a point in the trajectory to A, as might be suggested by the gloss 'pass by'. The remaining verb in (694) is dira, which can mean 'walk (go on foot)', 'travel', or 'be in motion'. To a greater extent than koy, dira emphasizes the fact of being in motion. In a minimal sentence in perfective aspect, like i dira 'they travelled,' there is little practical difference between dira and koy and either can be freely glossed as 'departed'. However, when prolongation of the motion is emphasized, as with preceding serial verb cindi 'continue', we regularly get dira rather than koy (or kaa): i indi ka dira 'they kept going.'

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11 Semantic topics

The verbs in (694) may be complemented by a Locational Phrase (see §5.12). An LP is essentially obligatory with hun, but may be omitted with any of the others if the locations in question are contextually understood. An overt LP may be a deictic adverb (§11.1.1), a simple NP denoting a location, or a spatial PP. In the case of a PP, the unmarked postposition is Loc ra or kuna even with hun 'leave'. An example is (696).

hal a ma hun until 3SgS Subju leave 'until he leaves it (=the world)'

(696)

[a [3Sg

ra] Loc]

The other postpositions commonly used with these basic motion verbs are doo 'at (the place of)' and ga On'. Like the Loc postpositions, they can be used in allative and ablative as well as stationary locational contexts. A number of other motion verbs are listed in (697). (697) a. b.

c. d

e.

verb yaara fatta hirow doo yee jiji jumbu tun goro kani waqga, kooli windi tenje

f. dira deesi, firri ßi fana

gloss 'take a walk, hike, travel* 'go out, exit' 'go in, enter* 'go in or to (river etc.)' 'return, go or come back* 'go up' 'go down* 'get up, stand up, arise' 'sit, sit down' 'lie down, go to bed' 'go around [tr]' 'go in a circle' 'head for, go toward' 'run, speed, (liquid) flow' 'walk', cf. (694) 'fly, fly away' 'swim' 'crawl*

other senses 'turn out well' Originate' 'repeat' '(e.g. bird) alight (on tree)' 'go home after work' 'get up and go, set off 'dwell; expect' 'spend night; be at rest'

'be straight; be facing' 'flee' 'be in motion' (unrelated homonyms)

yaara resembles dira 'walk* but suggests a more sustained or aimless trip or hike. The first two verbs in (697b), which involve transitions between inside and outside of a reference enclosure, have exactly the same syntax as the verbs in (694), i.e., they can be followed by the same set of LPs. A Loc PP is typical after 'go out' as well as after 'go in', as in (698a-b). In (698b), 'climb up out of ...' is a free gloss for literal 'we go up to exit...'.

77.7 Spatiotemporal structures (698)

361

a.

flo-o koy no-o hirow [kondey di ra] 2SgS-Impf go 2SgS-Impf enter [association Def Loc] 'You (will) go, you (will) enter into (=join) the association.' b. yer o susum yer o jiji ka fatta 1P1S Impf move-away 1P1S Impf go-up Inf exit [guusu di ra] [hole Def Loc] 'We move away, we climb up out of the hole.'

yee in (697c) is most common as first member of a serial-verb pair (699a), though it occasionally occurs as second member (699b). As first member, yee can mean 'repeat' and may therefore often be translated as s prefix 're-', as in the somewhat redundant yee ka filla 're-repeat' in (699a). (699)

a.

b.

a si yee ka filla Kisa [haya foo] 3SgS ImpfNeg return Inf repeat be-good [thing one] 'It (brittle limestone) will not again be good (for) anything.' ay si here ka yee moo ISgS ImpfNeg turn Inf return also Ί would not have turned (around) and gone back.'

koyne again

The stems in (697d) involve vertical motion and stance. The most interesting is tun 'get up, stand up, arise', since in narratives it can be used in a way best translated freely as 'get up and go' or 'set off. The point is that in general one arises from sitting or prone position in order to go somewhere, and this implication is more systematically exploited in KCh than in English. No special comments are needed on the other stems in (697d), on the verbs of straight or circular motion in (697e), or on the verbs of mode of propulsion in (697f).

11.1.4 Time expressions (nouns and verbs) In this section we consider overt temporal expressions, generally adverbial in function. For more complex relational expressions and constructions, see the following section. The nouns for '(point or, interval of) time' are alwakati- waati, jaman, and saa, all derived from Arabic. For quantified 'time (instance)' as in 'three times' see £ee (§5.4.9). alwakati~ waati most commonly means 'time' in the sense of a point or bounded interval of time. It frequently occurs with a demonstrative: alwakati woo di '(at) that time* and the Loc PP alwakati woo di ra 'in (=at) that time*. The form alwakati seems more common in Timbuktu KCh. Both are from Ar. al-waqt 'the time', perhaps via different intervening languages. jaman usually denotes a longer period of time and can often be glossed 'season', 'era' or '(the) times'. While alwakati - waati is evaluatively neutral, jaman occurs in expressions ('the colonial era', 'whatever the [next] era brings') which evoke the

362

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culture, lifestyle, socioeconomic circumstances, or other attributes of a period of time. The etymon is Ar. zamaan 'time; era'. The third stem, saa (
form moreyda

gloss 'now (immediate)'

b. hoo

'today, nowadays'

bii bii foo suba subasii c. jaaroo Sijoo jiiroo d manna manna foo yeesi

'yesterday; the day before* 'day before yesterday, a few days ago' 'tomorrow; the following day' 'day after tomorrow; two days later' 'today, nowadays* 'tonight' 'this year' 'last year* 'year before last, a few years ago' 'next year'

11.1 Spatiotemporal structures

363

moreyda 'now' is extremely common. It emphasizes immediacy, and can be expanded with little change in force as moreyda δηηο. The terms in (700b) focally denote days, but h can be used more broadly ('nowadays, these days'). The terms bii 'yesterday' and suba 'tomorrow' can also be adjusted to a past deictic center ('the previous day', 'the following day'). In (Ic) we have some of the closed set of forms with fused deictic *wo 'this' (§4.2.2). jiiroo 'this year' is complemented by the terms for adjacent years in (700d). 'Day1 is expressed variously as jaari 'daytime, day's work' (singular, opposed to 'night'), ban 'day, date' (in temporal locating expressions like 'the day when ...' or One fine day,...'), andjirbi 'day, 24-hour unit' (with nonsingular quantifier, as in 'five days' or 'how many days?', related to the verbjirbi 'sleep'). Terms for days of the week are all from Arabic. Terms for (Roman calendar) months are from French. There is a full set of terms for lunar months of the Islamic calendar, but most younger speakers no longer know them, handu 'month' (quantifiable) has the basic sense 'moon'. Expressions like '(the moon) stood up' (key) or 'died' (buu) denoting points in the lunar cycle are still heard, especially in villages (see texts volume, pp. 237, 265-67, with a Niafunke" speaker). 'Year' isjiiri. Roman calendar years like Ί975' are given in abbreviated French (soixante-quinze). Precise clock times (9:30, 1PM, 18:45) are now generally expressed in French (§5.4.7) on either the 12- or 24-hour cycle. Some speakers still use phrases with guuru 'metal' (hence 'clock') and a numeral, e.g. guuru hinja 'three o'clock'. The more traditional manner of denoting larger intervals of time, still fairly common, is to use the five daily Muslim prayers as reference points, supplemented by a few other timeof-day expressions. The terms for the daily prayers are alfajar 'pre-dawn prayer', aluula ' early afternoon prayer', alaasara 'midafternoon prayer', fitirow 'twilight prayer', and assaafoo ~ saafoo 'evening prayer'. The most common complementary terms arc subaahi 'morning', adduhaa 'late morning', widir 'mid-afternoon', and £iji 'night'. There are also various compounds like ciji maasu 'late at night, middle of the night'. There are also some verbs denoting events or states that are confined to particular times of day. These are given in (701). Upriver dialects havejaaje instead ofgulli. (701)

verb biyaa hoy gulli woyme, woyma hanna

gloss 'go in early morning' 'spend the mid-day hours (hot part of the day)' 'arrive or return in evening' 'go or arrive in the afternoon' 'stay up late, do all night*

Weekday terms like attinni 'Monday' are all from Arabic. One of these, aljumaa 'Friday prayer, Friday', can be quantified to denote week-length units ('four Fridays' = 'four weeks'). This is now less common than expressions involving the noun jirbiiiye 'week' ("day-seven"), as injirbi-iiye hirjka 'two weeks'. Seasons of the year are keydiya 'rainy season' (June-Sept., local French hivernage), anneema 'mild season after rains' (Oct.-Dec.), fufu 'coldness, winter* (Dec.-Feb.), and konn-ey 'heat, hot season' (March-June).

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11.1.5 jinaa 'first', koyne 'again', jaa 'since', hal 'until' Forjinaa 'first, at first, for a while, for the time being', see discussion beginning with (457) in §9.3.1, above. This word combines with negation to mean 'not yet' (§9.3.5). For koyne 'again' see discussion of examples (456a-c) in §9.3.1. It combines with negation to mean 'no longer', 'not again', and occasionally 'nor' (='again not'), see §9.3.5. The particles jaa 'since' and hal 'until' can take either a following clause, or a following spatiotemporal phrase (NP, PP, adverbial), as a complement. In concrete temporal contexts, jaa is glossable as 'since, ever since, from (a certain time)', hal as 'until, up until, as late as, even (now)'. Both particles also have more abstract syntactic-semantic uses as clause-initial complementizers (§9.5.8, §9.6.4). jaa and hal may also take apparently narrower scope over a temporal phrase (NP, PP, adverbial) within a larger sentence. The two are paired, indicating starting and ending points for an activity, in (702). (702)

yer ο fan [jaa subasuba], [hal fitirow] 1P1S Impf farm [since morning], [until dusk] 'We labor (in the fields) from morning to dusk.'

Although jaa and hal form surface adverbial phrases in (702), one could argue for a deeper structure involving complete clauses, from which a somewhat redundant verb has been dropped ('since morning BROKE, until dusk FELL'). These fuller variants are quite grammatical and are attested in texts. For the indicative clausal construction see §9.5.2. There is no difficulty in pairing jaa and hal with these (apparently) distinct types of complements, as in (703). (703)

jaa suba-suba, hal ma maata since morning, until 2SgSSubju notice kaa woyne woo, ο baa ka kam that sun Dem Impf want Inf fall 'from morning until you notice that the sun is about to set'

An example of hal in the spatial sense 'all the way to' with following locational phrase is (704). (704)

[hal tavaarus] na yer kata mobil [until Gourma-Rharous] Foe 1P1S bring vehicle '[All the way to Gourma Rharous (town)] [focus] we brought a vehicle.'

As with (702), one could argue for a deeper structure with clausal complement: 'until WE REACHED Gourma-Rharous.' This could also permit us to interpret hal as strictly temporal, despite the apparent spatial sense 'all the way to' in (704).

11.1 Spatiotemporal structures

365

11.1.6 Temporal uses of spatial and motion expressions Some spatial expressions discussed in §11.1.1-3, above, also have temporal applications. In the case of verbs yee 'return, go or come back', there is an intrinsic cooccurrence of motion (from points A to B) and temporal cyclicity (reverting to a prior state, such as being located at B, over an intervening interruption). In the usage of yee as serial verb, the notion of temporal repetition ('repeat, do again') displaces the spatial sense (§9.7.5). Some additional motion verbs can be mentioned, hirow 'enter' can mean 'enter into, get involved in (activity)', hun 'leave, go from' can also be used intransitively to mean '(phenomenon) cease to exist', too 'arrive, reach' is common with subject NPs denoting daily prayers (used to indicate time of day), as in (705). (705)

a/aasara too afternoon-prayer arrive "The afternoon prayer arrived (=took place).'

The concrete spatial postposition banda 'behind' can also be used after an NP in the temporal sense 'after'. This is most common in woo di banda 'after that, afterwards' ("Dem Def behind"), a phrase that prefaces a clause S2 to indicate that the eventuality it denotes followed that of the preceding clause S^ woo here is discourseanaphoric, denoting the eventuality described by S,. The sequence is therefore of the type 'S,; after that, S2.' There is no construction of the type 'after S,' with a conjunction 'after' taking clausal scope. A more complex example is (706), where the simple PP 'behind me' requires considerable semantic expansion. (706)

ay gar barjgu di taawo [ay banda] ISgS find floodplain Def be-new [ISg behind] Ί found that the flooded area (=ricefield) is new since I was last there.'

Loc ra or kuna can be used with verbal nouns (or anaphoric pronouns denoting eventualities). Here the "location" is temporal rather than spatial, and the result is a progressive-durative imperfective (see end of §7.2.2). The noun is usually indefinite in form, in generic-activity function. This is exemplified in (707a), where goy 'work' is a verbal noun. In (707b) we get a superficially similar expression with a Def noun and a different postposition doo 'at (the place of)'· Here the spatial sense is to be taken literally.

(707)

a.

b.

yer goo [goy ra] 1P1S be [work Loc] 'We are at work (=engaged in working).' yer goo [goy di doo] 1P1S be [work Def chez] 'We are at work (=at the work location).'

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11.2 Weather and ambient condition In §6.1.1 it was suggested that all sentences in KCh have a referential subject, with the (qualified) exceptions of impersonal obligational bara and simple equational clauses with nono. To support this claim it must be shown that predications of ambient condition (such as weather conditions) have referential rather than nonreferential (expletive) subject NPs. The regular 'rain' predication in (708a) has the noun 'rain' in the subject NP. The residents of northern Mali are in little danger of being snowed on, but using the French noun neige 'snow' a 'snow' predication can be constructed (708b). (708)

a.

b.

baana di kar rain Def strike 'It rained.' neige dam snow be-done 'It snowed.'

Other weather conditions are also expressed chiefly by nouns, so we get subject NPs with the weather information and a simple action or motion verb, or a locational quasi-verb. More examples in (709a-d). (709)

a.

anneema kaa jumbu yer ga pleasantness Rel descend 1P1 by 'the pleasant weather that has come down on us.' b. hew keyna goo wind small be "There is (was) a little wind.' c. baana di dam [sinji boyro] rain Def make [sticking-in pretty] "The rainclouds massed up (=made sky overcast).' d. neleku dam lightning be-done 'Lightning struck.'

11.3 Perception Perception predicates, as in English, have a subject NP representing the perceiver and a direct object representing the perceived object or its sensory emanation. The primary verbs, all transitive, are given in (710). mom normally means 'hear, listen, understand (words, language)', but has the sense 'smell' in connection with an object like hew 'wind, air, odor'. The verb maata is a more abstract stem meaning 'become aware of, through unspecified sensory channels.

11.4 Emotion and personality (710)

verb guna maata mom mani taba

367

gloss 'see' 'become aware of (feel, sense, notice, hear)' 'hear, listen, understand (words); smell (odor); notice' 'smell (odor)' 'taste'

We might also mention bey 'know, notice, recognize', korosi 'notice', taameysa 'notice (as distinguishing sign of object)', honno 'catch sight of, espy (from afar)', and 700 'look back' [intr]. Percept nouns include hew in the sense 'odor' and tembe 'taste'. Representative phrases are a si mey tembe 'it has no taste' and a tembe di ci muso foo ? 'its taste is like what?' For '(characteristic) voice or sound (of an entity)' the usual term is jinde (core sense: 'neck').

11.4 Emotion and personality We begin with a comprehensive list of verbs of transient emotional state or pain (711 a), along with a few terms for more complex object-directed emotions (7lib) and intelligence or personality attributes (71 Ic). (711)

a.

dukur nama waasu hemme hujun hottu horon tujur jelleju fiaali b. nimsi cese [X ga] bibi-ndi tammahaa c. futu fuuye ladab [n.] mey lakal neeri [n.]

'be angry' 'be angry, be upset, be disturbed' 'boil; be angry' 'feel sad' 'feel sad* 'feel sharp pain' 'feel heat; feel sharp pain' 'feel pain (mental or physical)' 'ache' 'joy; be joyful' 'feel regret' 'be jealous [of X]1 'feel exasperated, frustrated' 'be hopeful' 'be nasty, naughty, violent, angry, furious' 'be lazy, idle' 'polite person' 'have intelligence (=be smart)' 'stupid person'

Aside from the simple lexical items in (711 a), emotional states can also be expressed by more complex "metaphorical" phrases. Common expressions for happiness and sadness involve a possessed form of bine 'heart' as subject NP. Examples in (712).

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II Semantic topics

(712) a. b. c.

transcription a bine kaan a bine baa a bine nun

literal sense "his heart was sweet" "his heart broke" "his heart left"

free translation 'he was happy, satisfied, delighted' 'he was crestfallen, devasted' 'he has lost hope'

Expressions like 'X tied Y's head' or 'Y's head is tied' are used to indicate that Υ is confused, tongue-tied, in a dilemma, or otherwise incapacitated by an external situation. An example is a-a haw ni bomo 'it puts you (i.e., anyone) in a dilemma' (lit., 'it ties your head'). Euphoric and dysphoric moods can also be expressed by the construction in (713). (713) a. b.

transcription literal sense free translation a goo jaari boyro ra "he is in a nice day" 'he is feeling good (today)' a goo jaari futu ra "he is in a bad day" 'he is feeling bad (today)'

11.5 Kinship We commented on compound-like or otherwise segmentable kin expressions in §4.6.6. Here our focus is on the semantic system. Abbreviations are Fa[ther], Mo[ther], Br[other], Sifster], So[n], Daughter], Hu[sband], Wi[fe]. "+" before a kintype means 'elder', "-" means 'younger'. Thus Fa+Si means 'father's elder sister'. The speaker must choose on each occasion between two coexisting subsystems for sibling terms, one based on gender and one based on seniority (birth-order). The forms are given in (714).

(714)

transcription a. harme woyme b. beere keyna

kintype(s) Br Si elder sibling younger sibling

related forms cf. bar 'man' cf. woy 'woman' cf. beer 'big' cf. keyna 'small'

While there is no fixed rule, the usual pattern is to use the seniority subsystem for parallel-sex siblings and the gender subsystem for cross-sex siblings. Thus 'his Si' is usually a woyme, but 'his Br' is most often expressed as either a beere 'his elder sibling' or a keyna 'his younger sibling' depending on relative age. The parallel-cross and seniority oppositions ramify throughout the kinship system. In the first ascending generation, FaBr is partially merged with Fa, and MoSi with Mo. However, the adjectives 'big, old' and 'small, young' are generally added in reference (though not address) to indicate seniority vis-a-vis the actual Fa or Mo. baaba - baba 'father' may be reduced to baa in these combinations, especially in address, and the same reduced baa occurs as the initial in certain compound personal (nick-)names. Special stems are used for cross-kin (MoBr, FaSi) without reference to seniority. Hence the forms in (715).

77.5 Kinship (715)

transcription a. baaba, baba baaba beer baa beer baaba ciina baa keyna b. naa naa beer naa keyna c. hasey d hawey

kintype(sj Fa Fa+Br Fa+Br Fa-Br Fa-Br Mo Mo+Si Mo-Si MoBr FaSi

369

analysis

— 'father big' 'father big' (esp. as personal name) 'father small' 'father small' (esp. as personal name) — 'mother big' 'mother small' — —

In the first descending generation, the term 'child' (also used as a non-kinship term, as with English child) is applied to one's own offspring or that of one's brothers. There is a special term for Si's child. The basic stems are gender-neutral, but compound finals 'man' and 'woman' can be added to specify gender (§4.6.3). In the first descending generation, ije 'child' is the basic term for one's own So or Da. It is often extended to one's siblings children, especially by men to their brother's children. There is a special "nibling" (nephew or niece) term tuba for Si's children, used by men. Women often use composite expressions meaning 'Br's child' or 'Si's child' for their siblings children. The 'child' and 'nibling' terms are optionally genderspecified by adding compound finals (§4.6.3). Relevant forms are in (716). (716)

transcription a. ije ije-har ije- woy b. tuba tuba-har tuba- woy c. harme-ije woyme-ije

kintvpefs) So, Da So Da SiSo,-SiDa SiSo SiDa BrSo.-BrDa SiSo,-SiDa

composition "child-man" "child-woman" "nibling-man" "nibling-woman" "Br-child" "Sis-child"

In the second ascending generation, there is a single basic stem kaaga 'grandparent'. Likewise, there is a single reciprocal term haamaa 'grandchild'. As with the terms in (716) and others to follow, -har and -woy may be used as finals to specify gender. Parallel cousins (FaBr's or MoSi's children) are referred to by the sibling terms (714). Cross-cousins, who are eligible as marriage partners and may engage in joking relationships, are called baase with the usual optional gender marking. The primary spousal and affinal categories are those in (717). The affinal categories in (717b) are optionally gender-marked by adding -haror -woy. (717) transcription kintypefs) a. kune ~ kurne Hu wände Wi b. hanjire ~ hanjure parent-in-law

370

11 Semantic topics feijge

sibling-in-law

In this predominantly Islamic region, men commonly take more than one wife. From the husband's viewpoint the wives are ranked by seniority (marriage order, not birth order) as wände beer 'senior wife' and wände ciina 'junior wife' (oiina 'small'). From the perspective of one wife, another wife is called wocce (<*woy-ce) 'co-wife'. Since polyandry is not practiced, there is no comparable relationship of 'co-husband'; the male counterpart of woace is haroe 'male lover; (male) suitor (of a woman)'. The term konde can denote 'FaWi who is not one's Mo' (i.e., a co-wife of one's mother), or 'MoBrWi'. This sketch suffices to describe the basic consanguineal and affinal categories. More distant kintypes can be incorporated into the system either by composite expressions ('my cousin's child') or by semantic extension, respecting the parallelcross distinction (e.g., FaFaBrSoSo = 'brother'). More general expressions for 'kin' are illustrated in text fragment (718).

(718)

war ci arrahiim yo war ci fafa-Jje yo 2P1S be kinsman PI 2P1S be breast-child PI kaa koyra di 000 ra nda cere, be town Def Loc with friend, Rel war kul ci harme yo, wor o faaba cere 2P1S all be brother PI, 2P1S Impf help friend 'You are kin (of each other), you are breast-mates who are together in the town, you are all brothers, you help each other.'

Here we see three successive expressions with the same basic contextual meaning. arrahiim (
11.6 Flora-fauna

371

For '(man's) sweetheart, girlfriend, concubine' the usual term is woy^ δϋηα 'little woman'). For '(woman's) suitor, lover' see wo e, described above. Aside from kinship itself, social subordination at the person-to-person level can involve slavery or apprenticeship. The key terms are those in (719). transcription maale bafifia koyja maale-bafina

(719)

gloss 'master' 'male slave' 'female slave' 'apprentice'

comment of slave or apprentice (
By 'apprentice' here we refer to the traditional long-term subordination of a child to a tradesman or artesan. This is distinct from the current local sense of French apprenti 'assistant to bus or truck driver'. Slavery has long been officially abolished, but banfia and kogga are still in use to denote what are still caste-like statuses, and as personal (nick-)names. Their approximate antonym is bor&n 'free-born, noble'.

11.6 Flora-fauna The common life-form terms are those in (720). (720)

a.

tuuri subu b. addabba birmey hari-ham cirow ganda-korfo

'tree, woody plant; wood' 'grass, herb' 'animal' 'domestic animal' (e.g. pigeon) 'fish' (lit., "water-meat") 'bird* 'snake' (lit., "ground-rope")

Most of the basic-level terms are unremarkable and unsegmentable. The following terms are at least partly analysable. Linnean identifications, usually omitted here, will be given in the projected dictionary. It should be noted that many Timbuktu residents have very little knowledge of flora-fauna spp., and that terminology in this domain differs widely from town to town along the river. Birds: alfaa-kundurusu 'grey-headed sparrow' and alfaa-waaliya 'stork' begin with alfaa 'holy man' (
372

11 Semantic topics

bird'). Parallel domestic and wild spp. are distinguished by using the initial ganji'wilderness' for the latter: ganji-togkono 'wild duck (shoveler)' and ganji-tuujum 'wild pigeon (speckled pigeon)'. Several stems are reduplicated but otherwise unanalysable, e.g., gubaguba 'dove*. Fish: aside from the addition of color adjectives to differentiate spp. called by the same basic-level term, we may mention duu-kuntmbu as a variant of duu "Lobeo spp.', ham-korey ("meat-white") and synonym ham-ije ("meat-child") 'captain fish', andjawey-haysi 'fish sp.' (jawey 'tigerfish' plus häySi 'dog'). Fauna: ham-karji 'porcupine' ("meat-thorn"), and hilli-foo 'rhinoceros' ("hornone," a non-local sp. known from images). Some informants use an expression ganjihäySi ("wilderness-dog"), presumably the wild dog (tycoon pictus); another uncommon term is han-haysi ("water-dog"), perhaps the otter, ganji-haya 'lion' is literally "wilderness-thing", but historically may be a corruption of *ganji-hayla 'wilderness-cat' (hayla 'cat' survives in KS but has been replaced in KCh by onomatopoeic muSi, cf. dialectal Ar. müSS). Insects: baana-jje 'red insect sp.' ("rain-child"; this insect surfaces after a rain). In the case of flora, one interesting compound type involves a wild animal as initial (semantic possessor). This type is used for an inedible or otherwise unutilized sp. that physically resembles a more useful one: farka-taba 'bush sp.' ("donkeytobacco"), kooro-kaney 'wild melon sp.' ("hyena-watermelon"), and kooro-karsan (-kassan) 'bush sp.' ("hyena-card"; the spiked globular fruit resembles a weaver's carding implement). A fourth example with a different semantic structure is farka-teeli 'aquatic grass sp.' ("donkey-intestine"), explained variously as resembling intestines or as being popular fodder for donkeys). Some other composite flora terms are gaqganikottu 'herb sp.' ("flatland-rip"; the plant's root must fight its way through hard-dried clay), kaarey-kanda 'aquatic legume sp.' (contains kaarey 'crocodile', perhaps here a corruption, cf. KS kaaru for this legume sp.), koo-duqgura-hamni 'lemon-grass' ("baobab[tree]-short-powder"), and maafe-jje 'cumin' ("sauce-child"). Another spice, 'calabash nutmeg', is called waqgara-maafe-jje, with a patronymic surname prefixed to the compound for 'cumin'. A few compounds involving the stem tuuri 'tree' were recorded: tuuri-ferrealongside ferre 'medicinal tree sp.1 (cf. ferre 'stink'), tuuri-£irey 'shrub sp.' ("tree-red"), and saaboy-tuuri 'tamarix tree' (an exotic, newly planted sp. named after the native bush saaboy). The tamarix is also (transiently?) called jaabiratuuri after the popular recent governor Diabira who planted it extensively in Timbuktu. It should be noted that many apparent terms for flora spp. really denote the fruit or some other useful part or product. These terms are comparable to English cotton, carrots, etc., which require compounding to express unambiguously the source plant as a whole (cotton tree, carrot plant). In KCh, the term for the plant in such cases involves addition of the final -fiaa 'mother' (§4.6.2). Thus baani 'medicinal acacia pod', baani-naa 'acacia tree', parallel to haabu 'cotton' and haabu-naa 'cotton tree' (not native to the area). A somewhat similar case is maatiji 'peanuts' and maatiji-fita 'peanut greens' (fita 'leaf). In cases where the simple term does denote the entire plant, a compound with -ije 'child' may be used to denote the fruit or other separable part (§3.8.3, §4.6.2).

77.7 Body parts

373

In two cases, the noun hoy 'sauce made from leaves' is an inseparable final for the plant sp. name, so there is no terminological distinction between the prepared sauce and the plant found in nature: laa-hoy Okra' and faku-hoy 'herb sp.'. Among the noun-adjective combinations, the most lexicalized and widely-used appear to be karji-korey 'acacia sp.' ("thorn-white") and gorboy-honno 'native date' ("date-bitter"). kaabe is used to denote both a spice (a dried, shriveled lichen sp.) and a large tree sp. In the former but not the latter case, it is a development from kaabe 'beard, whisker*.

11.7 Body parts On the whole, the semantics of body-part terms ("partonyms") is unremarkable. As in all languages there are extensions from human parts to animal parts, parts of objects, topography, and relative spatial orientation ('behind', etc.). There are also the usual associations between certain body parts and ethnopsychology. In (721) we indicate some of the ramifications of partonymics. (721)

basic term banda ' ' bine biiri homo ~ boqo

gurjgu hambir jinde kamba kanje kuuru linji mee niine tefie

primary sense 'back' " " 'heart' 'bone* 'head' 'belly' 'hair' 'neck' 'hand, arm' 'knee' 'skin' 'muscle, nerve' 'mouth' 'nose* 'forehead'

other senses or uses 'rear' Topic (§8.4.1); emotions (§11.4) 'hardness' 'ball'; reflexive pronoun (§10.2.1) 'mound (in earth); island (in river)' 'feather' 'voice' 'branch (of tree); hold onto [verb]' '(exterior) corner or side' 'hide, pelt' 'root' 'doorway (of house); bank (of river)' 'pointed tip' 'good luck'

Perhaps the most interesting semantic extensions are those of mee 'mouth'. In the sense 'doorway' it denotes the passageway rather than the door as a physical object (called gambu). In the compound isa-mee with the term for 'river' it denotes the bank (contract English river mouth with very different sense). The common thread is the notion 'entranceway', the bank being the "entrance" to the river. To understand the topographic extensions of gurjgu to 'mound* and 'island', it is useful to note that most "islands" are alternately exposed and submerged (fully or partially) during the yearly flood cycle. An "island" is therefore simply a mound or rise, relative to surrounding lower terrain that is seasonally inundated.

374

11 Semantic topics

'Egg' is expressed with compounds involving tondi 'stone', e.g., gororjgo-tondi 'chicken stone (=egg)'. This probably reflects tabooing of *guijguri, the old word for 'egg', due to its originally secondary (now primary) sense 'testicle'. In the case of bine, the connection of 'heart' to emotions is natural, but its identity or homophony to Topic morpheme bine may reflect a recent convergence (some KS dialects distinguish bine 'heart' from binde Topic marker). Other cases of apparently accidental homophony, with no discernible semantic link, include moo ('eye', 'also', and 'rice crop', in upriver dialects also 'daybreak'), dee ('foot, leg' and 'time, instance'), boy ('[finger-, toe-]nail', 'millet soup', and 'herd [animals]'), and tasa ('liver' and 'push'). Some terms occurring in interesting compounds are kuri 'blood* (kuri-buan-o 'lazy', literally "blood-weak"), moo 'eye' (moo-futu 'wrongly placed, upside-down', literally "eye-bad"; moo-koog-o 'impolite person', literally "eye-dry"; moo-konn-ey 'bad mood', literally "eye-heat"; moo-yeen-ey 'coolness, self-control', literally "eyecoldness"). Other terms include haga 'ear', deene 'tongue', hine 'tooth', gande 'chest', hime 'navel', findi 'buttocks', bulle 'anus', kumbu 'lung', teeli 'intestines, entrails', foori 'penis' (means 'testicles' or 'venereal disease' in some other Songhay languages), tinji 'waist', bute or dofe 'vagina', and fa/a 'female breast*. The usual term for '(living) body' is gaa, which may be the source of the postposition ga On'. (The homonym gaa 'camp, encampment* is a variant of dagaa.) For '(dead) body* the term bukow 'corpse* must be used. The key terms for spiritual and mental components of a person are hunde 'soul, life-force', lakal 'thought, mind, intelligence, memory, imagination', and bii 'shadow, (visual) image, reflection, photo'.

Appendix l Upriver dialects

As one goes up the Niger River westward from Timbuktu, the major KCh-speaking towns are, in order, Dir£ (D), Tonka (To), and Niafunko (N). Goundam (G) is actually a few miles north of Tonka in an area characterized by a few large seasonal lakes like Lake Fati. Tape recordings were made in Timbuktu with an N speaker who had just come for a regional cultural festival, and from three G natives (whose speech showed some Timbuktu dialectal influence). After these were provisionally transcribed, I went to N for three days to check some problematic words or phrases from the tapes, and to do lexical and some grammatical elicitation. I also stopped in G on the way back and did some lexical and grammatical elicitation there. The dialect from villages near Dire* in the texts published by Zouber (1983) are close to that of G. The following comments are based mainly on N. Lexical differences are given in the dictionary, and minor points are covered in notes to the text collection. We note briefly that there is very extensive Fulfulde (Fula) influence in N, and considerable Tamashek (Tuareg) and some Arab influence around G. Most of the comments below deal with differences vis- -vis Timbuktu, but some confirm Timbuktu features for G and N where this seems useful in the context of comparative Songhay studies. There are some similarities between the upriver dialects and KS, in spite of the fact that Timbuktu intervenes physically between them. Timbuktu is the major urban center in the region and is several kilometers off the river on sand dunes; most of its inhabitants have little to do with the riverine economy (fishing, rice growing, boat transportation). Some of the current population along the river in the area from Dir6 to Niafunk6 may have originally come from the KS zone along the river, rather than radiating out from Timbuktu. §3.2. Original a is generally well-preserved in upriver dialects, in contrast to Timbuktu, where there are many cases of full or partial shift toward ο and, more often, e: talka TGN 'poor person', in Timbuktu also heard as telka. §3.4.2. GN have some stems that may end in velar nasal rj, as in tag- tan 'push off (boat)' versus Timbuktu tana, and dam ~ dag 'do' versus Timbuktu dam. Compare KS (dag in Gao and points east, but dam in Bamba). Final nasals in *CVN words tend to weaken to a nasalized wafter [o a} in riverine dialects including GN: mow N 'hear' (Timbuktu mom), now GN 'let, leave' (Timbuktu nan). There are a few cases of weakening after front vowels: m GN Only' (Timbuktu nin) andjew-ndiG 'prevent'. N also has variants with nonetymological m in such cases (jemdi 'prevent', nam 'let'), perhaps hypercorrections. §3.7.1. The combination of 3SgS a and Impf go - ο is usually heard as o-o N and as a-a G (like Timbuktu). Other combinations of pronouns with go ~ ο are as in Timbuktu, including 3P1 i-i. §3.8.1. ISgSSubju ye is attested in GN. The postverbal ISgDat form yene occurred alongside ay se in N.

376 Appendix l §3.8.4. Possessive postposition wane, definite wan di, occur in GN (like Timbuktu). §3.8.8. The Logo/3ReflPl in GN is generally pronounced ngi-yo(ori]gi-ya) with i not u, identical to 3P1F. This is often reduced to ngi GN in possessor function and before postpositions or DF morphemes. There were occasional possible cases of qgu-yoon tapes, but precise transcription was difficult. These upriver dialects also use 3SgF ga and 3P1F qgi(-yo) in possessor function much more often than in Timbuktu, which strongly prefers 3Sg a and 3P1 /'. Examples: / gar ga [qga huu mee daa] N 'they found him, [right (at) the door of hisx house]' versus Timbuktu ... [a huu di mee daa] for this sense. A similar G example is hal i ma too-ndi ga [qga huu di doo] 'for them to deliver him x [to his housej' versus Timbuktu ... [a huu di doo]. The Timbuktu pattern with 3Sg a and 3P1 i as possessor is grammatical in GN and occurs in texts, but is less common. In this respect, GN dialects have a partial affinity to KS, which does not allow a or i in possessor function. The nasal in the 3F pronouns like 3SgF qga is sporadically dropped in N, where some speakers gave examples like yee mey [[ga taka] hiqka] have two like it (lit., two of its type)' were recorded, with (q)ga taka 'its type'. The same pattern occurs with Logo/3Refl pronouns like Logo/3ReflSg qgu, which was heard as gu for some N speakers: a har gu wii baqa 'hex said he, had killed a hippo.' The full forms qga and qgu are normal in my G texts and elicited material. However, Zouber's texts in a similar dialect show fluctuation between qga and ga. §3.10.1. jab GN 'punch hard, kick' occurs along with a variant jabu N. The same forms also mean 'reduce, thin out', apparently conflating two etyma (compare KS zab and zebu, respectively). Retention of final b is also seen in lab GN versus Timbuktu low 'twist together', and in dedeb G versus Timbuktu dedew 'first Muslim lunar month'. §3.10.5. taaki N 'four', ciginN 'night', teki N 'slash in ground', etc., show that palatalization of original velars before {/ e] is not regular in N (compare Timbuktu taaci, ciji, toci). My G data show Timbuktu-type forms (taaci, ciji). The 3P1O form gi is not palatalized to ji in GN as it often is in Timbuktu. §3.10.6. In contrast to Timbuktu (and DjCh), the upriver dialects generally preserve the full bisyllabic forms of stems like been 'big' and taamu 'shoes', of the shape CWLi or CVVLu with sonorant L and a final short high vowel. Contrast beer (Timbuktu) and beer (DjCh) for the first, and taam (Timbuktu) and taam ~ tää (DjCh) for the second. §4.2.2. Today' is attested in the older form hanoo GN <*han woo. Timbuktutype höö is also attested in GN. §4.3.3. An example (G) of Characteristic -koy taking a VP-like input: [aljaka di yo se] taasi-koy'a seeker of the animals'. §4.3.4. a key-nte di N 'while it is standing' is a participial background clause of the type common in DjCh but not in Timbuktu. §4.4.2. konn-oGN 'hot' andjeen-oG Old' exemplify the -o ending. §4.5.1. i- GN is more common than a- as Absolute morpheme before the numerals greater than One' which allow this morpheme ('two', 'three', 'four', 'five',

Upriver dialects

377

and 'ten'). With /bo One' we usually get a-foo G and i-foo N. For foo 'which?' see §8.2.3. §4.6.6. G has kaa-woy 'grandmother' and kaa-har 'grandfather', with reduced forms of kaaga 'grandparent' (Timbuktu kaaga-woy, etc.). §5.6. Def d/may have a slightly different syntax than in Timbuktu. I noticed yer kul di N 'all of us' (always yer kul in Timbuktu). Another N text fragment, [woy nda ar] di yo kul 'both the women and the men', shows Def di (along with PI yo and quantifier kul 'all') following a noun conjunction ('woman and man') in a manner uncharacteristic of Timbuktu. §5.8.2. binde GN is the Topic morpheme (Timbuktu bine, KS usually binde). §5.8.3. The usual morphemes for Only' (cf. Timbuktu nin) are m G and tan N, the latter from Fulfulde. §5.9.2. G has a clause-initial phrase see na ... 'that is why ...', reduced from *woo di se na .... §5.9.9. kala GN 'except' (Timbuktu bara). §6.1.7. Cognate objects: an N example is a si hay... [hay boyro di] 'it (=grain crop) would not bear ... [a good bearing],' i.e., the plants did not produce a good grain harvest. §6.2.2. The N texts have a good instance of the causative of a transitive: haw-ndi gi [i derbe di yo], lit. "cause-to-tie them [their clothes]," i.e., 'make them put on their clothes'. §6.3. In addition to the Timbuktu-type compounds, GN have some combinations of verb stem plus -ganda 'down' like kar-ganda GN 'knock down' and kaw-ganda N 'fall down', whereas Timbuktu kar ... ganda and kaq ... ganda with similar meanings are not fused into single words. With 3SgO pronominal ga, compare GN kar-ganda ga 'knock it down' with Timbuktu kar ga ganda. §7.1.1. The equational quasi-verb (Timbuktu ci) was heard as ci in G, usually ti in N (as in KS). §7.2.3 The typical presentative 'here is X* of upriver dialects is not Timbuktutype X gaa goo, rather X goo ti with equational ti. With other verbs, a presentative goo is attested with kaa 'come'. §7.2.5. Future fa (following Impf morpheme) was verified GN. §7.3. Imperative plural is wo GN. §8.1.1. Nonsubject focalization is by fronting (extraction). G uses Focus na as in Timbuktu, but N generally has no overt Focus morpheme: [woo di nin] yer o jow 'just thatx [focus] is what we will take tx out' (the bracketed NP is fronted and focalized). §8.1.2. G has SFoc morpheme ga, cf. Timbuktu nga. This ga is also attested in N, but more commonly in the N texts we find Emph yaa or zero. Hence 'what's new?' is typically maa nga taawol in Timbuktu, maa ga taawot in G, and maa yaa taagol in N. An example from N with zero focus marking: maa duu nil 'what

378 Appendix l got (=afflicted) you?' The alternative maa yaa duu nil is also attested in N; cf. Timbuktu maa gga duu nil Whereas Timbuktu (and Djenne") speakers might connect their SFoc morpheme gga with 3SgF pronoun ηga, such a connection is less likely in GN, where (for many speakers) the pronoun is not reliably homophonous to the SFoc morpheme. In some textual passages, yaa N in subject-focus function seems to have absorbed a following Impf o in somewhat the same way seen in Timbuktu (and G) with Relative kaa. See footnotes for the Niafunke" texts in the texts volume (pp. 212, 216, 246, 248). §8.2.3. mise foo GN is the common form for 'how', taka 'manner, sort' is most common as a compound final, X taka meaning 'a sort of X*. 'Which' is foo GN, with Absolute prefix generally a-foo GN (not /-foo as in Timbuktu). §8.2.6. haydine GN 'whatchamacallit?' corresponds to Timbuktu haywana. §8.3. The basic relativization pattern is of the Timbuktu type in GN, with Rel kaa fronted and a phonologically zero trace in situ. There are some cases of Def di at the end of a relative clause in N: herey kaa ay hefey di, lit., 'the hunger which I hungered.' §8.3.1. In the G texts, kaa VP may be perfective or imperfective as in Timbuktu, the imperfective representing reduction of original *kaa go VP. In N, on the other hand, the imperfective subject relative is kaa^ ο VP, where kaa^ ο tends to be heard as [kao] or the like (with no sharp hiatus), involving at least some audible rounding. §8.3.4. The Timbuktu-type pattern where Instrumental nda is stranded in postverbal position after its complement is fronted was verified in the G and N texts. An N example is (722), a parallel construction.

(722)

mise way mise way 'The wayx came.'

kaa

yer koy nda t, Rel 1P1S with t, go yer ο . kaa nda t, come with t, 1P1S Impf in whichx we went (was) the (same) wayy in whichy we

However, elicited material from another N speaker showed a KS-type pattern with the nda fronted along with Rel kaa, and switched from preposition to postposition, as in (723). (723)

ay si bey mise kaa nda yer o koy too ISgS ImpfNeg know way Rel with 1P1S Impf go arrive Ί don't know how we are going to arrive (at our destination).'

§8.3.6. The extension of Rel kaa to kaa na in spatiotemporal contexts is found in G, as in handi di kaa na ... '(on) the day when ...'. I have no such examples in the N texts. §8.3.9. [taasu di kaa wor ο haw t] se N 'to [the grain, which you have tied tx ] confirms the Timbuktu pattern with a postposition following a complex NP.

Upriver dialects

379

§8.3.10. kaa ... is attested in GN in the sense 'when ..., such that ...': ay too nafunke, kaa ay too nafuqke, ... Ν Ί reached Niafunke; when I had reached Niafunke", ...' This can easily be mistaken for a homonymous 'but' conjunction of distinct origin, see §9.5.4. §8.4.1. In N, Top morpheme bine can be used at the end of a clause giving background to a following clause (724). (724)

nda wor ο dumbu parexemple [nda if 2P1S Impf cut for example [if dumbu bine], wor o kan^ndi taasu cut Top], 2P1S Impf set" grain 'When you cut, for example when you are cutting, the grain?'

wor ο 2P1S Impf di wala ? Def or? do you lay down

§8.4.2. "3F" or Full third person pronouns (3SgF nga, 3P1F ηgi-yo and variants) seem to be used more liberally at the expense of simple third person pronouns in N than in Timbuktu, especially as possessors. For example, Timbuktu a koy di 'the (aforementioned) fellow' occurs in N as ηga koy di. Likewise, N has ngi kul as an alternative to i-kul 'all of them'. §8.5.1. Emphatic yaa is often used in N for focalization (§8.1.1-2). Other emphatics are daa GN andjaati GN (definite jaatir d/N). §8.5.2. For Only' see §5.8.3. §9.1.2. The double-object construction for 'give' also occurred in N: noo ni ga 'give it to you'. §9.5.5. A 'but...' conjunction kaa GN is recorded. This is probably a borrowing from Fulfulde ka(a). It is distinct from a 'when ...' conjunction of the same form kaa, see §8.3.10. ammaa is also used to mean 'but...'; G often reduces this to maa ... §9.5.7. bara can mean 'since ..., because ...' in GN as in Timbuktu. §9.6.2. The clause-initial 'must' form is kala N, bara G. §9.7.5. N also has bara ka VP in the sense 'keep VP-ing'. In GN, VP ben (without Inf ka) is a common alternative to VP ka ben 'finish VP-ing, VP completely'. For 'have VP-ed', faati ka VP seems more common in GN than in Timbuktu. §9.7.7. kaa ta VP 'come and ..." was verified GN. §11.1.4. For 'now' (Timbuktu and G moreyd ), a variant mer-ta is common in N. Less common N variants are mer and morsa-ta. An evidently archaic form "/narsa" occurs in Zouber's texts from villages near Diro, in a dialect close to that of G; cf. marsanda 'now' in Humburi Senni (Songhay of Hombori). Presumably *mar and *sa(n), plus sources of Topic ta or Emph daa, are the original constituent morphemes. 'There' (anaphoric) is most often dooti GN (less often doodi), while 'there' (deictic) is recorded as hentu GN as in Timbuktu.

Appendix 2 Djenne Chiini

As with Appendix l, the material in this appendix is organized on the same numbering section for chapters and sections as in the main body of the volume, to facilitate comparison. Numerous sections are therefore omitted in the appendices.

1.2 History and geography The Niger and Bani rivers, flowing north, meet at the city of Mopti, where the major local ethnic languages are Fulfulde (Fula), Bozo, and to some extent Bambara. A three hour's drive to the southwest, in the well-watered zone between the two rivers, lies the city of Djenne". It is now known to foreigners for its lovely mosque and its bustling Monday market. Although the villages around it speak Fulfulde, Bozo, or Bambara, a Songhay variety closely related to Koyra Chiini is spoken in the city itself. It is referred to locally as jenne ciini 'Djenno language' (DjCh). Most natives of Djenno are bi- or multi-lingual. Bambara, which is not only one of the local village languages but also the major language of southern Mali and useful in Mopti, is gaining in importance and many younger people are DjCh-Bambara bilinguals. The Songhay presence in Djenn£ may reflect the importance of the fertile zone it anchors in supplying agricultural provisions to Timbuktu during the latter's Medieval heyday. Contacts between Djenne" and Timbuktu are rather slender these days, and Djenne" is now to some extent an isolated Songhay-speaking enclave. Nevertheless, many adults have had some exposure to mainstream KCh and to KS, either from interacting with northerners who have moved to Djennd, or from traveling. Even in Mopti, the regional capital, there is a sizeable population of Songhay speaking migrants from the KCh, KS, and HS zones. This exposure to KCh (and KS) has had some effect on the speech of the urban elite of Djenne, and one can therefore speak informally of DjCh "basiled" and "acrolect," the latter showing some supraregional features. Our taped dialogues tend toward the basilect, especially since some of the speakers recorded were simple farmers and tradesmen, while our directly elicited material tends toward the acrolect. The differences are not as vast as these terms (typically used in post-creole continua) might suggest, but the style issue needs to be kept in mind by serious Songhayists. It is probable that basilectal DjCh has been significantly influenced over the centuries by the local ethnic languages (Fulfulde, Bozo, Bambara). Linguistically, it is quite difficult to label the relationship between DjCh and KCh. Much of the basic lexicon is identical, there are very few sound changes involving consonants or syllabic structure of cognates, and the basic structure of NPs and simple clauses is largely shared. On the other hand, DjCh has seven vowels to five for KCh, and the whole syntactic complex of focalization, WH-interrogative formation, and relative-clause formation differs fundamentally between the two varieties. In this light, is DjCh a "dialect" of KCh or an autonomous language? You be the judge.

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In this appendix we emphasize those respects in which DjCh diverges from KCh, though some mention is made of similarities. The KCh texts volume includes a large sample of DjCh texts. A DjCh-English-French dictionary will be part of the dictionary set published by rHarmattan.

2.1 Brief outline of typical sentence and NP structures The basic structure and internal ordering of NPs and simple clauses are the same as for KCh, though some small divergences will be noted in the relevant sections below. The most dramatic synctactic difference is that WH-interrogatives and relative clauses generally remain in situ (i.e., are not extracted to the front of the clause). This has no effect on subject NPs, which are preverbal anyway, but is conspicuous with all postverbal NPs. SFoc rjga ~ ηα after focalized subjects is familiar from KCh, but it is occasionally replaced in DjCh by Emph yaa. This morpheme is also regular with semantically focal postverbal constituents. In view of this, DjCh lacks a productive counterpart to KCh Focus na (used only after fronted constituents), though apparent vestiges of this morpheme do occur. We begin with a few examples of NP and PP. Def di and PI 700 are common. Compounding may be loose, whereby the initial has its own postnominal morphemes like Def di (725b-c), or it may be tight, like the complex compound woy-huu-boro in (725e). Possessors (725a) precede possessed NPs. Numerals (725b) and adjectives (725c) follow the noun. Postpositions follow complete NPs (725d-e); note that gaa and see have long vowels in DjCh (cf. KCh ga, se). All of the DjCh structures illustrated are consistent with those of KCh. (725)

wor goy di yoo 2P1 work Def PI 'your jobs' b. hiij-ey di jirbi hinja di marriage Def day three Def 'the three days of the wedding (festivities)' c. jiqgar beer holiday big 'a major holiday' d. goy di fondo di gaa work Def path Def on On (=concerning) the work methods' e. woy huu-boro di yoo woman house-person Def PI 'to the woman's (=bride's) relatives' f. har di yoo kul man Def PI all 'all of the men' a.

see Dat

382

Appendix 2 Some simple sentences, broadly consistent with KCh patterns, are in (726).

(726)

a.

b.

c.

cirow di yoo^ o hurow [huu di yoo kuna] bird Def PI ~ Impf enter [house Def PI Loc] "The birds go into the house.' ma si gay doodi dee! Subj Neg endure there Emph! 'Don't spend too much time there, now!' [bor foo kul] ο ta warra ga a-foo-foo [person one all] Impf Put throw 3SgO Absol-Rdp-one 'Every person will throw it in turn.'

3.1 Consonants The inventory of consonants is identical to that of KCh in all material respects. Among the differences in distribution, we note that DjCh tends to simplify geminates and nasal-stop clusters to single consonants (§3.6.5), and that velar stops are generally stable (unpalatalized) before high and mid front vowels (§3.6.4).

3.2 Oral vowels DjCh has seven phonemic vowel qualities to five for KCh. DjCh distinguishes e from ε and ο from o in both short and long vowels. To my knowledge, no other Songhay variety has such a seven-vowel system, and our working hypothesis must therefore be that it represents an innovation in DjCh, and may reflect contact with Bambara and other languages with phonetic open [ε] and [o] vowels. However, working out the historical developments in detail is a matter for future research. Minimal pairs include cee 'time (instance)' versus cee 'foot', and moo 'also' versus moo 'eye' (also moo 'rice'). The stems cited are native Songhay items and have cognates in KCh, KS, and other Songhay varieties. In other cases, one or both of the paired items has no obvious Songhay etymology and is suspected of being a loanword: koo 'become dry' and koo 'baobab fruit' have good Songhay pedigrees, but koo 'winnowing van' does not. In the case of horso 'type of griot' and horso 'scythe', both stems may be loans. Certain speakers distinguish qga_^ o [rjgoi] '3SgF Impf from ηgu^ o [rjgo:] 'LogoSg Impf, phonetically. Note the improbable crossing pattern, with llaoll ending up higher than lluoll. I verified this in elicitation with two speakers, one of them rechecked after a one-year interval. However, the (other) speakers who were taped pronounced both as [rjgo:]. Assuming that the immediate proto-language had five vowels, and that *e and *o each split into open and closed phonemes in DjCh, we can make the following general points. First, the open-closed distinction is not made in diphthongs (§3.3.1-2, below). Second, it seems that a preceding y favored e over e, and a preceding w favored ο over o, hence yee 'return' and woo 'this', but there are some counterexamples. Third, in

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longer stems, a final-syllable high vowel (i u} favors a closed e or o in preceding syllables, as in kobi 'applaud', fombu 'crack (nuts)', jengi 'ring (Jewel)'. heku 'hiccough', and the trisyllabic kogoti 'hornbill'. A second-syllable a, on the other hand, favors an open first-syllable ε or o, as in wemba 'be dismayed' and gooja 'chew cud'. This correlation is not rigorous; counterexamples include neesi 'weigh'. Fourth, in monosyllables or other stems consisting only of mid-height vowels, open ε and ο are considerably more common (at least in native Songhay vocabulary) than closed e ando, hence be- ben 'end', here 'flip', noo 'give', gom 'swallow', kokoro 'be last', and kobe 'finger'. Fifth, there is a tendency toward "harmony" within stems, ε and ο forming one harmonic set and e and ο the other; in addition to the examples in the previous sentence, we have closed-vowel cases like foolo 'grain sack' and beese 'gazelle'. The second through fifth points in the list are all hedged with terms like "favor," "more common," and "tendency," and none is exceptionless. For example, we get too 'arrive' instead of #too and fee 'announce' instead of #fee. The form beer 'be big' suggests that the open-closed split occurred after the drop of final high vowels in *CVVLi and *CVVLu stems with sonorant *L. Timbuktu KCh has beer, and a prototype *beer would give DjCh teer by the generalization just given. On the other hand, if the openclosed split took place before this reduction, *beeri (KS and upriver KCh beeri) would normally have given pre-DjCh *beeri because of the stem-final high vowel, and this would incorrectly predict modern DjCh #beer with closed vowel after the reduction. The same argument applies to other stems such as moor 'be distant' or 'be sour' <*mooru. moroo 'excrement pellets' <*morgo (KCh moroo, Zarma morgo) and its nearhomonym moroo 'smash' <*morto (KCh morro, KS motti) suggest complex interactions between consonantal shifts (like the loss of *g and the degemination of *rr to r), and the open-closed split. The harmonic tendency noted above does not apply to compounds or to derivational suffixation. The Partpl suffix -nie generally retains its closed vowel even after stems with open vowels, and we have a minimal pair to show this: the participle ben^nte [bente] 'finished' differs audibly from the unanalysable bente 'good'. Likewise, Adj suffix -o does not usually harmonize with preceding stems: moor-o 'distant', jeen-o Old'. In addition to the basic seven vowel qualities, DjCh has at least two loanwords which have an [ae] vowel quality: rjkxee ~ ijkzeaen 'sardine sp.', dagwxx (and other variants) 'antelope sp.'.

3.3.1 Short-nucleus diphthongs A major difference between DjCh and KCh is that DjCh distinguishes ay from ey, and aw from ow. The distinction is clear in monosyllables; we have a minimal pair in say 'fever' versus sey 'scatter, sow', and near-minimal pairs such as gaw 'tooth decay' or 'seize' versus kow 'take'. In noninitial syllables of longer stems, the distinction is present phonemically but less reliably expressed in surface phonetics, making transcription difficult: koray 'white' versus -terey (Abstractive nominalizing suffix); garaw 'credit' versus samantow 'goose sp.'.

384

Appendix 2

The diphthongs owand ey tend toward monophthongal [o:] and [ei], respectively, and my early transcriptions confused them at times with oo and ee. It is possible that these diphthongs are in the process of phonemically monophthongizing, but the process is not complete. See §3.7.4 on contractions of diphthongs with following vowels.

3.3.2 Long-nucleus diphthongs aay is attested in gaay 'catfish sp.' (KS jagey and variants) and its homophone gaay 'be bounded', aaw occurs in a few loanwords like kitaaw 'tome (of Koran)' (
3.4.1 Nasalized vowels Since word-final nasal consonants are often weakened to vowel nasalization (see following section), word-final phonetic nasalized vowels are very common in DjCh. This is in addition to true original nasalized vowels, as in hää 'ask (inquire)'.

3.4.2 Word-final nasal consonants The tendency is for original morpheme-final *...VN, where N is a nasal, to appear in DjCh as a nasalized vowel, except when the word is immediately followed by a stop, liquid, or nasal, in which case the nasal consonant reappears. We therefore have many dictionary entries like kää/kaan 'be sweet', as in a kää 'it was sweet* and a kaan dee! 'it was indeed sweet'. This transcriptional variation is an idealization of a more complex phonetic reality, since what we write as kaan has some vocalic nasalization. The n also tends to assimilate in point of articulation to a following velar or labial, particularly in allegro speech. One can make a good case that the correct lexical representation is kaan, based on suffixal forms like Adj kaan-o 'sweet'. There is no lexical distinction between n and g in final position, and it seems likely that stems with these two original final consonants have merged into the pattern just mentioned. Because final nasals show some instability in other Songhay varieties as well, it is difficult to identify specific *g-final stems with certainty. However, if *f;/7 is the correct reconstruction for 'be heavy', DjCh fi~ tin shows that final *q is treated the same way as the final *n of *kaan 'be sweet'. There are also some stems with fixed final m, like kam 'fall'. There are also a number of stems which have fixed final m for some speakers, while other speakers merge them into the alternating pattern described above: dam or da ~ dan 'put, do'.

3.6.1 Nasal point-of-articulation assimilation gom-ndi—> gom-di 'be swallowed'. For reflexes of original *mn see §3.10.9.

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3.6.2 Liquid assimilation r frequently assimilates to following [n t d] at morpheme boundaries or after syncope: gar^ndi [gandi] 'be found', honn-o 'bitter' (<*hom-o), adjective for verb hor ~ horon 'beTbitter'. See also §3.10.4.

3.6.3 Semivowel assimilation y does not assimilate to a following palatal: woyce '(woman's) co-wife', w does not assimilate to a following labial: haw-τηεε 'fast (abstain)'.

3.6.4 Palatalization of velars Unpalatalized velar stops [k g] before high or mid front vowels are common in DjCh even when they are palatalized in KCh and KS. Among many examples we may cite deqgi 'charcoal' (KCh & KS denji), cigi 'night' (KCh ciji, KS cijiri), and kilili '(women) ululate with joy' (KCh & KS cilili).

3.6.5 Consonant cluster simplification Like other Songhay languages, DjCh shows phonetically natural simplifications of the type nnd —> nd, i.e. of a geminate to a simple consonant before another consonant. However, basilectal DjCh also has a number of stems which vary between geminated and ungeminated intervocalic consonants: fatta - fata 'exit' (*farfa), yadda ~ yada 'consent' (*yarda). My impression is that intermediate articulations are also found, e.g. [fata] with slightly extended duration of the first vowel, in contrast to fata 'wing' with briefer first vowel. DjCh has a number of cases where an old homorganic nasal-stop cluster has been simplified. DjCh has nda ~ nna ~ na for the Instr-Comit preposition (KS nd ) as well as for the 'and' conjunction, and has rjgu ~ rju for the Logo/3ReflSg pronoun (KS qga). KCh has the same variants, but in DjCh the simplified variants have especially high frequency. Moreover, SFoc and 3SgF morphemes are always rjga in Timbuktu KCh, but rjga - ηα in DjCh. These synchronic variations may explain "hypercorrect" cases where a nasal-stop cluster seems to have developed out of a single consonant in loanwords: alaanda ~ laanda 'custom' (Arabic al-Taad-a), maambala 'commerce' (Arabic mu-Taamal-a). Note also wandasu 'converse' (KCh wannasu, from dialectal Arabic wannas-).

3.7.1 Contractions involving Imperfective ο ~ go The ο variant of the Impf morpheme undergoes regular VV-Contraction following a morpheme-final vowel, as in KCh. Thus har di ο ... [hardo: ...] with bar di 'the

386

Appendix 2

man'. NPs ending in a may contract fully or partially, e.g. when Topic morpheme ta is involved: ta^ ο ranges from fully contracted [to:] to something approaching [tow] or [too]. The Impf morpheme has more systematic contractions with preceding subject pronominals. In three cases (ISg, 3Sg, 3P1), DjCh and KCh (of Timbuktu) have sharply different contractions. In (727) we give the DjCh forms and reproduce the KCh forms for comparison. We omit the 3P1F and Logo/3ReflPl pronouns which end in yo and so contract unproblematically with a following ο to phonetic [...jo:]. (727)

Combinations of subject pronoun and Imperfective MAN morpheme category source DjCh KCh [Timbuktu] ISgS *ay go ay (go) yee 1P1S *yer go yer o yer o 2SgS *ni go no-o no-o *wor go 2P1S wor ο wor ο 3SgS *a go WOO a-a II o-o [Niafunke] 3P1S yo-o i-i *i go 3SgF *qga go gga o [qgo:] gga o [rjgo:] Logo/3ReflSg *qgu go qgu^ o [qgo:] qgu^ o [qgo:]

Unconnected a go, i go, etc. are attested but less common. While the DjCh ISgS Impf form is sometimes ay go, very often where we expect imperfective aspect (and get it for other pronouns) we hear just ay. In processing texts, then, ay before a verb is aspectually ambiguous, and context must be used to infer the aspect: ay goy Ί am working' or Ί worked'. Textual examples of imperfective ay are pointed out in footnotes in the texts volume (e.g. pp. 272, 280). If a DF morpheme like Topfic] ta intervenes between ay and Impf, the latter is overt: [ay taj ο .... DjCh and (Timbuktu) KCh differ dramatically in their contractions for 3SgS and 3P1S. However, for 3SgS the DjCh form wo-o is close to the upriver KCh (e.g. Niafunko) variant o-o. DjCh wo-o koy 'he is going' could be misinterpreted in Timbuktu as woo koy 'this one went' with demonstrative woo. In DjCh, contracted forms are not only used (regularly) for imperfective aspect with a following verb, but also (occasionally) when go ~ ο functions as quasi-verb 'be' (with following locational phrase). This does not happen in KCh.

3.7.4 Contractions of vowels over an intervening semivowel Word-final diphthongs sometimes contract in allegro speech with a following vowel, the most common case being when a V-initial pronominal PP like 3Sg Dative a see follows a verb. In this speech style, phonetic [kaise:] could reflect kow a see or kay a see as well as kaa a see (the verbs are 'take away', 'stand', and 'come', respectively).

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3.7.6 Phonology of Abstractive nominalizer -ey The Abstractive suffix is heard as -ey, except that it combines with stem-final u of a multisyllabic stem to produce -oy (in most cases). Examples under §4.3.1.

3.7.7 Syncope Syncope of the KCh type horon 'be bitter', Adj honn-o (<*horn-d) is sporadic. DjCh horö ~ horon does have an Adj honn-o 'bitter', but unsyncopated horon-o is now common (§4.4.2). (For 'be hot', DjCh normally usesc/u/jiju rather than korö ~ koron.)

3.8.1 Forms of the ISg pronoun The pronoun ay tends to be heard as [ej] as postverbal direct object, so in that position we will transcribe it ey (labeled ISgO) as we do for KCh. The combination of ISgS plus Impf *go is expressed either as ay go or as reduced ay, the latter being indistinguishable in form from the unmarked (perfective) form ay (§3.7.1). Thus a kar ey 'she hit me', ay go goto (or aygoro)'! am sitting', ay goro sat'. The ISg Dative is regular even in postverbal position: ay see. There is an archaic irregular variant nana ~ Rene, recorded in fixed phrases like hinjey nene 'excuse me!'; cf. KCh yene and variants. The ISgS plus Subjunctive is regular: ay ma. A variant #ye is not recorded.

3.8.2 Forms of the 2Sg pronoun 2Sg ni is optionally reduced to n when followed by another morpheme within its phrase, i.e., as subject, as possessor, as postpositional complement, or before a DF morpheme: n si hin^ ka ... 'you cannot...' The 2SgDat is usually the regular ni see (optionally reduced to n see) even in postverbal position. An irregular (and archaic) variant mane or mana is attested postverbally. The 2SgS plus (perfective) Negative is ma na, hence ma na koy 'you did not go-' 2SgSSubju (2SgS plus Subjunctive) is ma, as in no-o baa [ma cindi ...] 'you(Sg) want to remain ...' 2Sg (as left conjunct) plus 'and' is usually ni nda... (or ni nna ...), but an archaic and rare ma na ... 'you and ...' is attested.

3.8.3 Forms of -ije 'child' as compound final The desyllabified form is phonetic [-jdje], orthographic -yje.

388

Appendix 2

3.8.4 Possessive wane before Definite di Possessive wane plus Def di is often realized as wan di as in KCh, but both wan di and wane di are attested in texts.

3.8.5 Plural yoo before postpositions and other particles Whereas KCh usually unrounds the PI morpheme yo to ye before postpositions and DF morphemes, DjCh retains the rounding. Moreover, we will note in §3.10.10 that the DjCh morpheme is phonetically long in some positions, and we take yoo to be the basic representation. Of course the long vowel is more resistant to unrounding than the short vowel of the KCh morpheme.

3.8.6 Verb-stem changes before derivational suffix -ndi The productive Fact-Caus or Mediop suffix is -ndi as in KCh, hence Fact moor-ndi 'cause to be faraway' or 'cause to ferment', Caus £ow-ndi 'teach' (= 'cause to read'), and Mediop gar-jidi 'be found'. However, there are a few cases of -aandi, all in factitive or causative (transitivizing) function. KCh likewise has a few cases of -andi instead of the usual -ndi, and this bisyllabic suffix variant is evidently archaic; the KS Fact-Caus and Mediop morphemes have the form -andi. The long aa in -aandi is inconsistently heard because of the following consonant cluster, but there is also a variant -aani with a clearly long vowel. The derivatives in (728) are all Fact-Caus. (728)

verb a. jaraa maraa b. kaan kaan maan kuma kani c. jur d. jumbu

gloss 'boil [intr]' 'assemble [intr]' 'be sweet' 'be sharp' 'be near* 'be diminished' 'lie down' 'run' 'go down'

derivative jaraa-ndi maraa-ndi kaan-aandi kaan-aandi maan-aandi kum-aandi kan-aandi jur-aandi jur-ndi jum-aandi jum-aani jum-di

gloss 'boil [tr]* 'assemble [tr]' 'sweeten [tr]' 'sharpen' 'bring near' 'reduce' 'lay, set down' 'expel, force out' II

'take down'

In (728a), the verb already ends in aa so the causatives can be taken as having the simple -ndi suffix. Nevertheless, such ambiguous forms can be thought of as bridges between the -ndi and -aandi variants. We see the -aandi variant in (728b) with both C- and V-final stems. Variation between -ndi and -aandi (variant -aani) is observed in (728c) and (728d). The stem 'go down' (728d) additionally loses the bu syllable in the causative derivative, as it does in KCh jum-di and KS zum-andi.

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3.8.7 Shortened forms of "light" nouns before Rel kaa ~ kama The forms are bor kama (alongside boro kama) 'someone who' (
3.8.8 Forms of unmarked and marked third person pronouns. Simple 3Sg and 3P1 are as in KCh. The 3P1O form gi does not palatalize toji. For the omission of 3SgO ga after postverbal (especially, clause-final) nda ~ na 'with', see §4.1.6, below. 3SgF rjga ~ ga is distinct from Logo/3ReflSg rjgu ~ r/u, but 3P1F is homophonous to Logo/3ReflPl, both being r/gu-yo ~ qu-yo ~ qgi-yo - qgi-ya ~ ngi. The syntax of 3F pronouns seems to be the same as in KCh.

3.10.1 Word-final *b jaw 'slug, knock hard' matches KCh jab.

3.10.4 Assimilation of *r, *y, *w to following consonant From *yarda 'consent' we get a full gamut of pronunciations: yadda (or degeminated yadä), yarda, and yarra. kurru 'drag' probably reflects *kurnu (KCh kurru ~ kunnu, KS kurnu). rs seems stable: horso 'caste of griots'. From *farta 'go out' we get fatta (or degeminated fata) and /aria. From *harta 'miss (target)' we get harra. DjCh generally agrees with KCh except that DjCh shows more extensive progressive assimilation to rr (e.g. yarra is not attested in KCh). woyce 'co-wife' and haw-mee 'fasting' show that semivowels have not assimilated.

3.10.8 Stem-final *ey to oy Examples are garboy 'date (fruit)', kuboy 'meet' (also 'darkness'), humoy - himey 'bathe'. 3.10.9. *mn—> nn Basilectal DjCh frequently assimilates original *mn to a geminate nasal within stems. In two cases we get mm: hamni- hammifor both 'flying insect' and 'flour' (KCh hamni). The two etyma were originally distinguished by tones. The more common result from *mn is nn, as in gomni ~ gonni 'good fortune, blessing' (KCh gomni), jenne 'divide up' (KChjemna), and kunna 'gather up' (KCh kumna).

390 Appendix 2 3.10.10 Vowel length of postnominal morphemes (yoo, gaa, see) The DjCh counterparts of KCh PI yo, Dat se, and postposition ga On' are usually heard with long vowels when followed by another morpheme within the same phrase, e.g., yoo before a postposition and see or gaa before ηεε 'here'. The long vowel of see and gaa is quite noticeable in texts, while that of yoo is less consistent. I posit long-vowel representations and assume that the phonetic short variants reflect a shortening rule applying clause- and phrase-finally. Transcriptions will show the lengthened variant throughout.

4.1.6 Pronominal forms preceding and following nda ~ nna~na 'and, with' 3SgO ga is often omitted after postverbal nda - na 'with' (or 'than'), especially at the end of a clause, as in (729). For further examples see footnotes on the Djenne" material in the texts volume (e.g., pp. 316. 326, 334). The KCh counterpart would end in nda ga with 3SgO ga, and this longer form is also attested in DjCh. (729)

[kamba wane di yaa] njerfu di bow na [hand Poss Def Emph] money Def be-much than(3SgO) 'The hand(-made) one is (=costs) more than it (=machine-made one).'

4.2.1 Demonstrative pronoun Two occurrences of woo 'this, that' sometimes flank the noun: 773 [woo sii fl woo] 'by [this such-and-such style]'. Here the noun is sii 'style*. woo di with Def morpheme often precedes a definite noun. In this case, woo di can sometimes be taken as a possessive, perhaps denoting the situation described in preceding discourse: [woo di] jiin di yoo 'the years [ofthat (situation)]'. However, very often woo di followed by a definite noun is best treated as an appositional or modifying demonstrative: woo di maraa di 'that one, (i.e.) the encounter' = 'that encounter'. When the noun is plural, woo dim this position is often not separately pluralized, suggesting a modifying status: woo di horso di yoo 'those/lorsogriots'.

4.2.2 Frozen combinations of noun plus *-woo Examples are:jiiroo 'this year', h (rarely hand) 'today', cigoo 'tonight', musoo 'like this, thus', jaaroo 'today, these days', misoo 'that way'.

4.2.3 Demonstrative and deictic adverbs Proximal ηεε 'here' is common on its own, or attached appositionally to a NP in locational function. In the latter case, it may precede, follow, or flank the core NP: jenne ηεε = ηεε ]εηηε=ηεε ]εηηε ηεε 'here in Djennd*. However, ηεε preceding a

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nonlocational NP is interpreted as possessive Of here', and can be freely translated as 'local': ηεε hiijey 'a wedding of here' = 'a local wedding*. Nonproximate adverbs are deictic hentoo ~ hontoo '(over) there* and definiteanaphoric doodi 'there'.

4.2.4. Emphatic and Approximative modifiers of deictics Emphyaa can be added to locationals: ηεε yaa 'right here'. Approx here is common after locationals: doodi here 'around there, in that area'.

4.3.1 Abstractive nominal (-ey ~ -rey) Some Abstractives are tin-ey 'heaviness', yeen-ey 'coldness', hiij-ey 'marriage', duijg-oy 'hotness', send-oy 'difficulty, expensiveness', waafak-oy 'agreement', yaraas-oy'inexpensiveness', and moqg-oy 'inability*. The verbs underlying them are u~ tin, yey, hiiji, duqgu, sendu, waafaku, yaraasu, and moijgu. Note that stem-final υ generally combines with -ey to give -oy. However, I have recorded fut-ey 'evil thing' from futu 'be nasty'. Perhaps this is an archaism or a reflection of KCh influence. baay-ey 'love, fondness' contrasts with ibaay 'passion, object of desire' (cf. baa 'want, love'). The examples of -rey are bey-rey 'knowledge', daabu-rey 'covering', duu-rey 'gain(s)', mey-rey 'possessions'.

4.3.3 Characteristic nominals -koy is common as agentive or denominal: doon-koy 'singer' (doon 'sing; song'), kur-koy 'shepherd' (kur 'drive [cattle]'), taabal-koy or taabal-neere-koy Owner of portable street stand' (taabal 'table', neere 'sell'). -koyni is attested as a denominal in aloojur-koyni 'cripple' (aloojur 'infirmity, handicap'), guqgu-koyni 'pregnant woman* (guqgu 'belly'), maambala-koyni 'merchant, shopkeeper*. -kom is attested in holh-kom 'madman', with a variant hollo-ko- hollo-kon.

4.3.4 Participle and Ordinal (-nte) The suffix is -nte as in KCh: bisa-nte 'passed', taaki-nte 'fourth'. In DjCh, participles have special uses in backgrounding clauses. See §9.5.11 for discussion and examples.

392

Appendix 2

4.4.2 Adjectives as noun modifiers Adj suffix -o makes a verb of adjectival quality into a modifying adjective, though some stems do this without a suffix. Except at the level of fine detail, the system is as in KCh. A few of the more interesting forms are in (730).

(730)

Adjectival forms verb a. jeen ß -tin feie ~ feien b. sendu duqgu c. horö ~ horon

d. e. f. gh. i.

koo yey woro

kuu bow boon man beer cirey £iina

gloss 'be old' 'be heavy' 'be lightweight' 'be expensive, difficult' 'be hot' 'be bitter' 'be dry' 'be cold' 'be thick, stout' 'be long' 'be many, much' 'be good' 'be thin and narrow' 'be big' 'be red' 'be small, few'

modifying adjectival form jeen-o tin-o felen-o send-o

durjg-o horon-o, rarely honn-o koog-o yeen-o woroo kuku bobow boyr-o mayra beer cirey ciina (but kayna preferred)

(730a-b) show regular suffixation of -o after a V-final (730a) or C-final (730b) stem. (730c) shows that no syncope occurs, contrast KCh horon 'be bitter' and Adj honn-o (*horn-d). Forms in (730d) show minor stem changes before the suffix, as in KCh counterparts. In (730e), if my transcriptions are correct the verb has final short o while the adjective has final long oo. KCh has woroo in both functions (cf. KS wary a 'be fat' ). (730f) shows apparent reduplication instead of a suffix. (730g) has the two examples of probable historical metathesis (*ry —> yr); boyr-o arguably ends in Adj -o, but mayra does not. (730h) shows two among several attested zero-suffix cases where the adjective is identical to the verb. The same pattern is possible in (730i), but ciina is not common as a modifying adjective.

4.4.3 Adjectives as NP heads with Absolute prefix i-tey-nte di 'the wet one' and i-koog-o 'the dry one' show the use of Absol /- with -nte participles and with ordinary adjectives, when the preceding noun slot is vacant. tanaa Other' can be used without Absol prefix: tanaa si doodi 'nothing else is there' (lit. Other is not there').

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4.5.1 Modifying and Absolute forms of simple numerals Absolute One' is a-foo, contrast i-foo 'which?'. However, i-foo can also mean Ones', the plural of a-foo. The Absol prefix in DjCh is usually a- with numerals '2-5' and '10': a-higka '2', a-hinja '3', a-faald'4', a-guu '5', a-woy '10'. 4.5.2 Compound numerals Key forms are woy-gu '50', woy-du '60', and woy-ye or woy iiye '70'.

4.6 Nominal compounds Basically as in KCh. Typical compound finals are -terey (essential nature) and -jeqey 'lack'. 4.6.7 Verb-noun compounds (-kasine, doo) -kasine 'mate' occurs in several compounds like goro-kasine 'neighbor' (lit. "sitmate"). doo is the usual final for 'place of compounds after a verb stem (i.e., a zeroderived nominalization): tan doo 'fishing place'. Cf. postposition doo. 5.2.1 Possessor NPs The Possessive postposition is wane. For contracted wan di see §3.8.4. 5.4.3 Universal quantification (kur 'all') The quantifier 'all, every' is kur or kul. Absolute forms are singular a-kur, plural i-kur. The participle maraa-nte 'having gathered (come together)' is often added to kur as a (weak) intensifier, as in (731). For kur as right-edge marker, see §9.5.10. (731)

yo-o kaa-na 3PlS-Impf bring 'They will bring it all.'

a-kur AbsolSg-all

maraa-nte gather-Partpl

394

Appendix 2

5.4.5 Complementary subsets ('some ..., others ...') The pattern cindi yoo... , cindi yoo... , oindi yoo ... 'some ... , others ... , (still) others ...'is attested.

5.4.7 Currency and time of day The five Muslim prayers are alfajar (pre-dawn), aluula (early afternoon), alaasara (mid-afternoon), fitirow (twilight), and saafoo (evening).

5.4.8 Quantification over pronouns yer bor foo kul 'each (one) of us' can be coindexed with a 3ReflSg pronoun, as in (732). (732)

yer bor foo kul go jow 1P1 person one all Impf take '[Each one of us]x will take his, baggage.'

ijgu jiney 3ReflSggear

5.8.1 Focus The most common focalizing morphemes are Emph yaa and SFoc tjga ~ rja. Emph yaa can follow a NP in postverbal position, since focalization in DjCh does not require fronting. For details on these constructions see §8.1. For an infrequent ne with apparent focalizing function, see (754) in §8.1.1.

5.8.2 Topic (Top bine, Top ta, and 3SgF rjga) These morphemes are used much like their KCh counterparts, bine can be used with NPs (generally proposed); less often it is clause-final, ta is very common after preposed, subject, or possessor NPs, and clause-finally.

5.9. Adpositions and case-marking The basic postpositions are Dative see, gaa On', doo 'at the place of, Locative la or kuna, and Possessive wane. As in KCh, postpositions like Dat see follow DF morphemes: yer moo see 'for ustoo'./wu tanaa yoo yaa guqgu 'inside other houses'.

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5.9.2 Dative see The form see occurs frequently even with (postverbal) ISg and 2Sg pronouns: ay see, ni see. The archaic portmanteaus are uncommon: ISgDatnene (§3.8.1), 2SgDat mana ~ mane (§3.8.2).

5.9.4 Locative The Loc postpositions are kuna and la (for a few speakers, ra). la corresponds to KCh and KS ra, but KS has la in some phonological contexts. kuna and la are interchangeable. Often repetitions or other parallel constructions have la and then kuna, as in (733), suggesting that the interchange is stylistically valued. (733)

har di go dey [a la] haya, man Def Impf buy [3SgLoc] thing, woy di moo go dey [a kuna] haya woman Def too Impf buy [3Sg Loc] thing 'The man (=bridegroom) buys a part of of, and the woman (=bride) buys a part of it.'

5.9.7 Postpositions of spatial orientation ('behind', 'facing', etc.) The postposition cirey 'beside; under' may reflect the partial conflation of two original postpositions seen in KCh cire 'under' and jere 'beside'. (To be sure, DjCh does preserve jere, especially in the compound postposition X jere gaa 'beside X'.) DjCh cirey mosi often means 'beside', and ganda 'ground' (noun) or 'below' (adverb) can be used roughly as an 'under' postposition (734). (734)

a go taabal di ganda here 3SgS be table Def under Approx 'It is (on the ground) under the table.'

guqgu 'belly' often functions like a postposition 'within, in the midst of: yer huu di gurjgu 'within our house (=family)'.

5.9.8 Quasi-prepositionsjaa 'since' and hal - har 'until' The two quasi-prepositions are illustrated together in (735). (735)

ay go koy fan ftaa suba-suba] ISgS Impf go farm [since morning] Ί go work in the fields from morning to dusk.'

[har fitirow] [until twilight]

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Appendix 2

In (735), we could argue that the NPs following jaa and har really represent clauses ('since morning broke,' etc.). However, in DjCh, hal ~ har is occasionally found in texts before an infinitival VP (736). (736)

hal ka koy too hiijey han until Inf go attain marriage day 'up until (reaching) the wedding day'

di Def

gaa on

5.9.9 Prepositions bilaa 'without', bara 'except' bilaa 'without' is attested with following NP complement: bilaa sukar 'without sugar', bara is the 'except' morpheme; see §8.5.3. kala occurs as a clause-initial morpheme but means 'perhaps'.

5.9.10 'between, among, amidst' jeme corresponds at least in usage to KCh game (737). For 'friend' = reciprocal see §10.2.5. (737)

woo di go yer^ na Dem Def be 1P1 and 'This (matter) is between us.'

cere friend

jeme among

5.10.1 Pronouns in apposition to nouns wor jam di yoo 'you(Pl) metalsmiths'. This is indistinguishable from 'your(Pl) metalsmiths', and perhaps the two are syntactically identical. An expanded relative clause type wor kama si jam di yoo 'you(Pl) who are metalsmiths' is also attested (withsj- ci 'be').

5.11 Instrumental, comitative, and conjoined NPs The preposition takes the form nda - nna ~ na, of which na is the most common variant. The form nna is used chiefly in pronominal conjunctions: r/ga nnaX '3Sg and X'. nda is also sometimes heard in this context. The preference for "heavy" variants in this position helps avoid confusion with Neg na, which follows similar pronoun forms.

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5.11.1 Conjunction of personal pronouns nga nna X (nna varying with nda and na) is a common way of beginning a discourseinternal sentence, and can be glossed 'in addition,..." In (738), the speaker lists groups of persons involved in a wedding who must be given kola nuts or similar gifts. (738)

yo-o mey 3PlS-Impf have rjga na 3SgF and

maa name [cere [friend

qga

[baba

na

yoo kaa go koy PI Rel Impf go yoo gooro], PI kola],

yoo

hoo-koy, hunter,

gooro]

3SgF and [father PI kola], 'They have persons ("names") who go as intermediaries ("hunters"). In addition, kola for friends. In addition, kola for fathers.'

5.11.4 nda in idioms and adverbial phrases Locational adverbials are sometimes phrased with Instr-Comit nda - na, especially when the location is not pinpointed. Thus koy [na jere tanaa] 'go [to another side (=area)]'. This is distinct structurally from koy-nda X 'take (go with) X' (§6.2.5). A more genuine instrumental sense is seen in the superficially similar koy [na δεε] 'go [with (=on) foot]'.

6.1.1 Verbs, quasi-verbs, and the referentiality of subject NPs cindi 'remain' is attested in a construction with nonreferential 3Sg subject, as in (739). (739)

mor-ta^ a cindi baija di nda now 3SgS remain hippo Def and 'Now there remained (only) the hippo and Faran'

fara F

Aside from impersonal bara 'must', DjCh sometimes uses harjgu 'think, believe, remember' sentence-initially, followed directly by an indicative clause ('thinking that ...' or 'presumably ...'). Often the missing subject NP is inferred to be the speaker, but in context it can also be another sentient discourse referent ('he went in, thinking that ...'). The verb ci~ ein 'say' is frequently used in the same type of subjectless construction, but in this case the missing subject is inferred to be a discourse-internal referent or a generalized indefinite ('they say that...'). Sentence-initial yala ... or yara ... with following subjunctive clause means 'hopefully ...' or 'hoping that...', but the particle is not a true verb.

398 Appendix 2 6.1.4 Ditransitives and other verbs with dative noo 'give' has the same basic constructions as in KCh. (740a) shows the object plus dative construction, while (740b-c) show the double-object construction. (740)

a.

b.

c.

ay noo [ni see] njerfu di ISgS give [2Sg Dat] money Def Ί gave the money to you(Sg).' ay noo ni attey ISgS give 2SgO tea Ί gave you (some) tea.' noo ey attey give ISgO tea 'Give me (some) tea!'

However, a Djenno native from whom I elicited a broad range of 'give* examples rejected the double-object construction in cases where both objects are pronominal. Thus (741a) was elicited but (741b) rejected. By contrast, in KCh the type (741b) is perfectly good, in fact preferred to (74la). (741)

ay noo ISgS give Ί gave it to you.' b. #ay noo ISgS give a.

ga 3SgO

[ni [2Sg

ni 2SgO

ga 3SgO

see] Dat]

cerbu 'show' is attested only in the object-plus-dative construction. hii can mean 'lend' or 'borrow'. The first sense gives a construction X hii Υ [Ζ see] 'X lend Υ to Z' with dative recipient, and is parallel to the construction with ηεετε 'sell'. The alternative construction is X hii Υ [Ζ gaa] 'X borrow Υ from Z,' and is parallel to the construction with dey 'buy'. 6.1.6 Verbs with instrumental-comitative complements (nda ~ n ) The locational complement of 'go' is sometimes expressed as a nda phrase: koy [nda X] 'go to X', as in koy [na jere tanaa] 'go to another side (=area)'. This is distinct structurally from koy-nda X (§6.2.5). Likewise we have bana X [na Y] 'pay X (person) [with Υ (e.g. money)]' and jaateyX [na Y] 'count (=consider) X [as (being) Y]'.

6.2 Derived voice forms As in KCh, the major derivational suffix is -ndi, Factitive-Causative or Mediopassive.

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6.2.3 Mediopassive -ndi The suffix is productive: gar-ndi 'be found (be present)', gsm-di 'be swallowed'. Arguably, yey-ndi-ndi 'be set out to dry' is a case of Mediop -ndi added to FactCaus -ndi. However, ifyey-ndiin the sense 'set out to dry' is synchronically a FactCaus derivative, it is only by historically secondary association with yey-ndi 'make cold, make happy'. Cognates like KCh yendi 'set out do dry' are not Fact-Caus in form, and can take Mediop -ndi just like any other underived transitive stem.

6.2.5 Suffixation of -nda to verb stem Suffix -nda is often pronounced -nna or -na, following the phonetic variation of the related Instr-Comit preposition nda ~ nna - na. Examples are kaa-na 'bring', koy-na 'take, go with1, sawa-nna 'coincide with', kuboy-na 'encounter, meet', gay-na 'miss (not encounter) for a long time', and fay-nda 'separate oneself from". hima 'resemble' is used without suffix as a simple transitive.

6.3.3 Centripetal -kate This Centripetal suffix is not attested in my DjCh data. 'Come back' is yee ka kaa, not #yee -kate.

7.1.1 Quasi-verbs ci (equational) and nono (identificational) The unnegated equational-quasi verb is pronounced ci or si, the latter being common in the local basilect. In general, each speaker uses one variant or the other consistently. Care must be taken to distinguish this si (which always precedes a NP) from ImpfNeg si (which always directly precedes a verb), and from negative locational si (next section). As in KCh, the quasi-verb normally occurs in unmarked (perfective) aspect (742a) and is therefore negated by na (742). In this combination the quasi-verb is pronounced ti (742b). (742)

a.

b.

na ni si boro kaa... if 2SgS be person Rel ... 'if you are a person who ...' ay na ti yenge-koso ISgS Neg be brawler Ί am not a trouble-maker (habitual fighter).'

400 Appendix 2 7.1.2 Locational quasi- verbs go, si The locational quasi-verbs, positive go and negative si, seem to have about the same syntax as do KCh 500 and sii. However, in DjCh I hear the vowels as short. Moreover, go is sometimes reduced to ο when followed by a locational phrase, as in (743). KCh always has goo in this context. (743)

mey ijga^ ο who? S Foe be 'Who is here?'

ηεε here

go may also disappear entirely after a pronoun (if a locational expression follows), as in wor ηεε 'you(Pl) are here' in ex. (744b) of §9.5.6. Disappearance is most common after ISgS pronoun ay, as in (744). Recall that Impf go is also often omitted after this pronoun. (744)

ay _ morayda norjgu ISgS _ now place Def 'the place (in) which I am now'

di kama Rel

Because of these facts, the equation of locational go ~ ο and si with Impf go - ο and ImpfNeg si is even better justified in DjCh than in KCh. 7.1.3 Existential and impersonal quasi-verb bara As in KCh, bara 'exist' is compatible with various nonzero MAN morphemes (745a-c) and with Inf ka (745d). (745)

a.

send-oy di kama go bara mor-oiino difficult-Abstr Def Rel Impf exist now '(in view of) the inflation which there is now' b. hay a si bara thing ImpfNeg exist 'There is nothing (here).' c. ni bana-hay moo ma bara 2Sg pay-price too Subju exist 'Your pay should also exist' (= 'You should also get paid') d. cee-jeqgi di yoo kaa cindi ka bara foot-bracelet Def PI Rel used-to Inf exist 'the anklets (ankle-rings) that there used to be'

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7.1.4 Possessive predications mey, a simple transitive verb 'have, own' is common. An alternative is equational 'be' plus possessive wane as predicate, as in (746). Here, si is a variant of the equational quasi-verb 'be', not the ImpfNeg morpheme. (746)

taasu di si [yer kur yaa wane] rice Def be [1P1 all Emph Poss] 'The rice belongs to all of us.'

An alternative is existential-locational 'be' plus a PP, like the dative in (747). (747)

na a hin-ey go [ni see] if 3Sg means be [2Sg Dat] 'if you have the means of (=for) it' (= 'if you can afford it')

7.2.1 MAN morphemes and sequences Perfective, indicative, and positive are unmarked. Overt morphemes are Impf go - o, ImpfNeg si, Neg na, and Subju ma. The Subju Neg combination is ma si. The system is basically identical to that of KCh. 7.2.3 Presentative imperfectives (preverbal gaa) goo is used before kaa 'come': a goo kaa 'here she comes!' It also occurs before kaa-na 'bring': a goo kaa-na attey di 'here he comes with the tea!' gaa is used before locational quasi-verb go, as in a gaa go 'there he is!' It is also attested before Impf go and another verb, as in (748). (748)

deqene mayra woo yoo kaa gaa go red-amber fine Dem PI Rel Presentative be [sarra-sarra rju-yo] [Rdp-straighten 3ReflPl] 'these beads of red amber which are right here, forming straight lines (=strings)'

An unusual feature of DjCh is that gaa can combine with goo, as in a gaa goo kaa, another way to say 'here she comes!' 7.2.4 Subjunctive mood wor ma or wo ma is the 2P1S Subjunctive. For 2SgSSubju ma see §3.8.2.

402

Appendix 2

7.2.5 Future The simple imperfective can be used with future time reference, as in KCh. Explicit futures are of two types. Put morpheme fa follows the Impf morpheme (749), as in KCh. (749)

bor foo kul ο ta warra ga a-foo-foo person one all Impf Fut throw 3SgO AbsolSg-oneone 'Each person will throw it in turn.'

A serial-verb construction with kaa 'come, become' and a following VP (Inf ka is usually omitted) can mean 'come and VP'. With imperfective aspect, the construction can also be interpreted as future, with no entailment of centripetal motion (750).

(750)

no-o kaa 2SgS-Impf come 'You(Sg) will go.'

koy go

Since Impf go - ο is often omitted after ISgS ay (§3.7.1), the usual ISg counterpart of (750) is ay kaa koy. kaa in this future function may combine with kaa 'come' in the latter's lexical sense: no-o kaa kaa 'you will come'.

7.2.6 Marked Progressive constructions Quasi-verb go 'be' combines with the Locative (la or kuna) of a nominalized verb (Abstractive or zero-derived) (751). This pattern is more common in DjCh than in KCh. (751)

a.

b.

i go moo-dumbu di yoo la 3P1S be rice-cut Def PI Loc 'They are involved in the rice harvests.' i go koy di kuna 3P1S be going Def Loc 'They were going (along).'

7.3 Imperatives With kaa 'come' the forms are: singular positive kaa! 'come!', singular negative ma si kaa! 'don't come!', plural positive wo kaa!, plural negative wo ma si kaa!. The only difference vis- -vis KCh is that the plural negative uses the 2PlImpera wo rather than the full 2P1S form wor, as sometimes in other subjunctive contexts.

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8.1.1 Nonsubject focus constructions Whereas nonsubject focalized constituents in KCh are always fronted, in DjCh they may be fronted or may remain in place (in situ). The in situ pattern seems dominant in the basilect. When a semantically focused constituent such as a WH-interrogative remains in situ, it may lack explicit DF marking (752a-b). While WH-interrogatives are presumptively focalized, in sentences with ordinary (noninterrogative) NPs as postverbal constituents there may be no way to determine whether one of these constituents is "focalized," so the concept of grammatical idealization is dubiously applicable to DjCh. However, Emph yaa is often added to a postverbal NP in focalizing function, as with the WH-interrogative in (752c). (752)

a.

b.

c.

n kar mey? 2SgS hit who? 'Whom did you hit?' no-o kaa [alwakati foo] ? 2SgS-Impf come [time which] ? 'When are you coming?' 771 rjaa [maa yaa]l 2SgS eat [what? Emph] ? 'What did you eat?'

When the nonsubject focalized constituent is fronted, yaa may be attached to it (753a-f). When the focalized constituent is a PP, yaa follows the noun and precedes the postposition (753d). (753)

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

taka foo yaa no-o Qoyl manner which? Emph 2SgS-Impf work? 'How do you(Sg) work?' mey yaa ni kar t ? who? Emph 2SgS hit f ? 'Whom, did you hit tx T maatiga yaa ay qaa t peanut Emph ISgS eat t 'It was peanutsx [focus] that I ate tx.' [maa yaa see] no-o hem ? [what? Emph Dat] 2SgS-Impf weep? 'Why are you crying?' men yaa^ a go! where? Emph 3SgS be? 'Where is she?' frans nerfu di yaa ay go France money Def Emph ISgS Impf 'It's French moneyx [focus] that I have f,.'

mey have

t t

404 Appendix 2 An archaic Focus particle ne is used by some speakers after a fronted focal nonsubject NP or PP. Overall it is much less common than KCh na or KS no, some speakers do not seem to use it at all in this focalizing function. An example is (754). (754)

galiyeni kuna ne belesi njay kaa G Loc Foe B N come 'It was [in Galiyeni (a boat)] [focus] that Belesi Ndiaye came.'

ne - na is used by many speakers in kaa ne, kaa na, or kama ne, variants of Relative kaa ~ kama used fairly often in nonsubject relatives. We will gloss this ne na in interlinears as "Foe," for lack of a better label, but it has no clear focalizing value in this combination. Examples are (77Ic) and (772) in §8.3.3, below. If a postposition is present, ne~ na follows the postposition: kaa see ne ... 'to whom ...' (Dative). KCh has a somewhat similar na in a few fixed combinations like saa di kaa (na) ... 'when ...'. 8.1.2 Subject focus constructions The KCh SFoc morpheme qga has a counterpart in DjCh SFoc qga ~ qa (755a-c), which occurs frequently in the recorded texts. (755)

a. b.

c.

mey tjga^ o koyl who? SFoc Impf go 'Who will go?' woo Qga si bar di kaa Dem SFoc be man Def Rel 'This [focus] is the man who hit me.' ni tja Rin attey di 2Sg SFoc drink tea Def 'It's you [focus] who drank the tea.'

kar ey hit ISgO

However, some other speakers (not recorded on tape) prefer Emph morpheme yaa in this function (756), as in Niafunk6.

(756)

a. mey yaa kar nil who? Emph hit 2SgO 'Who hit you(Sg)?' b. [rjga yaa] koy [3SgF Emph] go 'It's he [focus] who went.'

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8.2.1 Polar (yes-no) questions and answers Clause-final polar interrogative ba is a characteristic feature of DjCh. It is unknown in other Songhay variaties. A simple example is (757a). (757b) shows that it follows any embedded clauses—here a quotative—, and also shows how ba may cooccur with a higher-level negative a na ti 'it is not (the case that...)' in querying function. (757)

a.

b.

B go koyra bal B be town yes-no? 'Is B (man's name) in town?' a na ti [ni bar [no-o 3SgS Neg be [2SgS say [2SgS-Impf 'Didn't you say that you would hit me?'

kar hit

ey]] ba ? ISgO]] yes-no?

Disjunctive yes-no questions with wala Or' often take unreduced form, ba occurs after the first of the disjunct clauses (758a). (758b) shows wala as a tag question in yes-no contexts where the second disjunct clause (the positive-negative inverse of the first clause) is omitted. (758)

a.

b.

woo di na mor-ciino woo di^ ο gay ba ? Dem Def with now Dem Def Impf be-long-time yes-no? wala woo di na moreyda a si gay ? or Dem Def with now 3SgS ImpfNeg be-long-time? 'From that (prosperous time) to now, has that been a long time? Or from that time to now, it has not been a long time? wor kaa-na huriya kayna wala ? 2P1S come-with knife small or? 'You brought the little knife, didn't you?' (='Did you bring the little knife?')

Clause-initial particle yala ~ yara is occasionally used instead of wala in simple or embedded yes-no questions. While wala also means Or' and is basically a disjunction, yala - yara elsewhere has modal values ranging from desiderative (§9.6.4) to expectation, cf. (819) in §9.6.5, below. Truncated echoic replies to yes-no interrogatives, of the form subject pronoun plus positive go or negative si, occur in DjCh but less systematically than in KCh. Alternatives are a simple 'yes!' ( h ! with rising pitch on the second syllable) or 'no!' (δ'δ! with falling pitch) interjection, or a syntactically complete sentence including a verb, as in (759). (759)

Q: a na kaa ga bal 3SgS Neg become 3SgO yes-no? 'Didn't he become it (governor)?' A: a kaa ga 3SgS become 3SgO '(Yes,) he became it.'

406 Appendix 2 8.2.2 WH-questions The simple WH-interrogatives are: mey 'who?', maa 'what?', me ~ men or mee-here 'where?', merje-marje 'how many?" or 'how much?', foo 'which?' (Absolute i-fod), and mote 'how?'. Sentence examples are in §8.1.1-2 (fronted) and §8.2.4 (in situ). Plural mey yoo 'who?' is attested, though the unmarked singular is usual. PI maa yoo 'what?' seems to be rare (compare maa yoo 'names'). 8.2.3 Composite WH-interrogatives ('how?', 'why?', 'when?') Composite terms for 'how?' are misa foo, saa foo, or taka foo, all containing foo 'which?'. The original nouns involved are mise - misa and taka, both meaning essentially 'manner', saa foo is probably a transformation of *(mi)se foo, perhaps contaminated with an earlier *saa foo 'what time?'. 'Why?' is maa see, literally 'to (for) what?'. Clause-initially, the phrase can also mean 'because' (§9.5.7). 'When?' is alwakati foo, literally 'which time?'. 8.2.4 In situ (non-fronted) WH-interrogatives WH-interrogatives are semantically focal. They may be fronted (several examples in §8.1.1-2). However, a characteristic of basilectal DjCh is that focal and relativized constituents remain in situ (in place), as in the WH-interrogative cases in (760). Emph yaa can be added to an unfronted (as well as fronted) focal constituent (760a,c).

(760)

ni qaa [maa yaa]! 2SgS eat [what? Emph] 'What did you eat?' b. n kar mey 2SgS hit who? 'Who(m) did you hit?' c. ni noo nerfu di [mey yaa 2SgS give money Def [who? Emph 'Who did you give the money to?' d. no-o koy mS! 2SgS-Impf go where? 'Where are you going?' e. no-o kaa alwakati fool 2SgS come [time which?] 'When are you coming (back)?' f. no-o goy [taka foo]! 2SgS-Impf work [manner which?] 'How do you work?'

a.

see]! Dat]

Djenne Chiini

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In (761), we see that comitative 'with whom?' can be expressed by a conjunction, with mey 'who?' as second conjunct. (761)

[τα nda mey] gga^ o [2Sg and who?] SFoc Impf 'Who are you going (together) with?'

koy [na go [with

cercj? friend]

8.2.5 Questions embedded under matrix verbs ('know', 'ask', etc.) The pattern (762a-b) is similar to that of KCh, with indefinite forms of low-content ("light") nouns. (762)

a.

b.

ay si bey taka ISgSImpfNeg know manner Ί don't know how she works.' ay si bey non^ ISgS ImpfNeg know place Ί don't know where he went.'

di kaa Def Rel kama Rel

wo-o goy 3SgS-Impf work

a 3SgS

koy go

8.2.6 'whatchamacallit?' haywane 'whatchamacallit?' (noun) or 'be or do whatchamacallit?' (verb).

8.3 Relative clause constructions The Rel morpheme is kaa or kama (cf. KCh kaa, KS karj). kama is most common in postverbal position, kaa in preverbal position, though this is not a hard rule. Fronted nonsubject relatives also permit a variant with na - ne extension, hence kaa na, kaa ne, or kama ne. This na ~ ne may be a vestige of the (nonsubject) Focus morpheme preserved as KCh na, ultimately reflecting a reduced 'there' demonstrative *no. The most direct comparison is with the occasional KCh addition of na to adverbial relatives like saa di kaa (na) ... 'when ...'. Since fronting of nonsubjects is not usual in (basilectal) DjCh, forms like kaa na do not have high text frequency. There are no examples of kaa na or the other extended variants with subject relatives. Note that in a subject relative, kaa na plus VP would be interpreted as containing Neg na. Pluralization with yoo, i.e. kaa yoo, is attested in texts but is rare. Some apparent cases may really involve a hesitation after kaa, followed by a restart of the clause, beginning with 3P1S Impf yo-o ('the people who—, they are ...'). However, in the sequence kaa yoo go ... attested in one text, with Impf go, the 700 can only be the PI morpheme. The Rel morpheme readily follows a plural NP ending in yoo, as in boro di yoo kaa ... 'the people who ...'.

408

Appendix 2

Especially in elicitation (from French cues), we get the KCh-type construction with Rel kaa ~ kama at the beginning of the relative clause. In texts, however, we usually find a basilectal construction with kaa ~ kama (most often kama) at the end of the relativized NP, which remains in situ. We therefore bracket kama with this NP. However, even in basilectal DjCh, a relative clause may be added as a kind of elaboration to a NP introduced in a preceding clause ('there sat the man, whom I had seen'), and in this event the appended relative clause typically begins with Rel kaa kama followed by a clause with a resumptive pronoun (or occasionally a zero). When the "relativized" NP is a new discourse referent (not carried over from the preceding clause), it is quite often difficult to decide whether to gloss it as a restrictive relative clause ('a man whom I saw') or as an indefinite, since either is reasonable with reference to the following context: 'the man whom I saw, I hit him* = saw a certain man, (and) I hit him' (there is no interclausal 'and' conjunction to differentiate the two constructions). An indefinite reading seems reasonable in (763a), while in (763b) the universal quantifier kur 'all' generalizes to all possible locations. (763)

a.

b.

wo-o naa ga, wo-o baa a mee—, 3SgS-Impf eat 3SgO, 3SgS-Impf break 3Sg mouth—, na [bor kaa] gar farä if [person Rel] find F 'It (fish) was eating it (rice), it was breaking its mouth's—. If someone found Faran,..." ma gaaba-ndi ta, hiijey di na a gar ey 2SgSSubju try Top, marriage Def if 3SgS find ISgO [nongu kur kaa], ma samba ay see... [place all Rel], 2SgSSubju send ISg Dat ... 'You should try, wherever the wedding finds me, to send me ...'

The combination of na 'if with a relative clause is very common when a new discourse referent is introduced, as in (763a-b). Often a free English translation would disregard the 'if and translate as a simple relative clause, typically functioning as a preposed topic NP for the following clause. Thus, in (763a), 'anyone who found Faran, (he ...)'. However, if we take the 'if as part of the semantic representation, we should then treat kaa ~ kama as an indefinite marker ('some X' or 'a particular X'), hence 'if someone found Faran, (he ...)'. A third possibility is to reconstruct the full representation as including a second person pronoun and a copula (omitted from the surface): 'if you are someone who ...' We occasionally get a similar clause-initial na before participial clauses (§9.5.11). In (764), the second kaa (that of hay kaa 'something', here extended to mean 'someone') must be indefinite, since taking both kaa's as relative would result in semantic gibberish.

Djenne Chiini

409

ηυ ta^ ο bey woo yaa, bor kaa gar LogoSg Top Impf know Dem Emph, person Rel find hay kaa [ηυ baba yaa gaa] thing Rel [SReflSg father Emph on] '[she said] she knew that this (was) someone, who, had found (=inherited) something (or other) from his, father.'

(764)

A restrictive reading of relatives can be enforced by using Def di, at the end of the clause or between the relativized noun and the Rel morpheme. In (765a-c), we see di in both of these locations. In (765a), it would seem that the final di is attached to kama, but (765b-c) show that we can get clause-final di even when the relativized noun with kaa ~ kama occurs earlier in the clause. (765)

a.

b.

c.

no-o kaa jow [w nde di kama] di 2SgS-Impf come take [wife Def Rel] Def 'the woman whom you(Sg) come and take' [h55 boro beer foo-foo di kaa] go bara di [today person big Rdp-one Def Rel] Impf exist Def One or two of the big (=elderly) persons of today' [hari-jeqey di kaa] kaa hasara ga [yer ta gaa] di [water-lack Def Rel] come ruin 3SgO [1P1 Top on] Def 'the drought which has come and ruined it on us'

(765a) is an in situ direct object relative; (765b-c) are subject relatives. In (766), the final di kama functions as a reduction of e.g. alwakati di kama '(at) the time when'. (766)

; baa ka wotjgu di kama, farmaka, a koy... 3P1S want Inf refuse Def Rel, F, he went... 'When they were on the verge of refusing, (as for) Farmaka, he went...'

8.3.1 Relativization of subject NPs Since subjects precede verbs, there is no way to determine whether a relativized subject is in situ or has been fronted. In smoothly uttered sentences, kaa ~ kama is not followed by an overt 3SgS or 3P1S morpheme (767a-b). However, Impf go is audible after the Rel morpheme (767a). (767)

a.

bora kaa go kar ja-kayna person Rel Impf hit child 'a person who hits children' b. jiijgar di kama too moreyda holiday Def Rel arrive now 'the holiday that has come up now'

410

Appendix 2

8.3.2 Relativization of direct objects and complements of 'give* Examples of in situ direct-object relatives are (768a-c). (768)

a.

b.

c.

yer o goy [haya di yoo kama] [jiijgar di 1P1 Impf work [thing Def PI Rel] [holiday Def 'the things that we produce during the holiday (season)' ay go har [ni se] [derbe di kama] ISgS Impf say [2Sg Dat] [garment Def Rel] 'the garment which I am describing (speaking about) to you* ay ta_^ o koy yaara wor kama ISg fop Impf go seek 2P1O Rel 'you whom I went and sought'

la] Loc]

When a relativized direct-object NP is extracted, we often get a resumptive pronoun, like 3SgO ga 'it' in (769a,d), or 3P1O gi in (769b-c). The first kama in (769a) may be a hesitation, or may be indefinite ('a certain ...'). (769)

a.

b.

c.

i si yada ka dan^ goy kama, 3P1S ImpfNeg consent Inf do"" work Rel, kama i na gar ga tju-yo baaba gaa Rel 3P1S Neg find 3SgO 3ReflPl father on "Theyy refuse to do any particular workx, whichx theyy did not find (=inherit) tx from theiry fathers.' woo di yoo si yer boro yoo yaa, Dem Def PI be 1P1 person PI Emph, kama i koy-na gi Rel 3P1S go-with 3P1O 'Those are our people (=Africans), whom they (=whites) took.' wala [koyra-yje di yoo jaatin} or [villager Def PI self] ~ ηga^ o dey-dey [woo di], SFoc Impf Rdp-buy [Dem Def], [woo di yoo kama] wor ο tiisa gi [Dem Def PI Rel] 2P1S Impf prepare 3P1O

[nam-nooro

d.

di

yoo

kunajl

[copper Def PI Loc] Or is it the locals themselves [focus] who buy that, (namely) those (jewels) that you make in copper?' woo di kaa^ a taa ga Dem Def ReT 3SgS sew 3SgO 'that one which he sewed'

However, we also get some examples with phonologically unrealized traces (770).

Djenne Chiini (770)

haya kaa ay go thing Rel ISgS Impf 'a thing, which I know (/

411

bey t know t

In texts, the type (769a-d) with resumptives is most typical of contexts where the discourse referent in question is part of the preceding clause, and the relative clause follows as an elaboration. This discourse pattern is seen most clearly in (769c).

8.3.3 Relativization of NP complements of postpositions In elicitation, we get fronted Rel kaa ~ kama and a postverbal PP with resumptive pronoun. In (77la), the resumptive pronoun is 3Sg though the NP in question is plural, but the resumptive pronoun more often agrees in number. The extended variant kaa na or kaa ne (see end of §8.1.1) is exemplified in (771c). (771)

a.

b.

c.

baqgu di yoo kaa hari fata [a kuna] swamp Def PI Rel water exit [3S g Loc] 'the floodplains, which, the water has receded from tx.' bor di kaa ay noo a see fierfu di person Def Rel ISgS give 3Sg Dat money Def 'the person, whomx I gave the money to tx.' bor kaa na ni goy a see person Rel Foe 2SgS work 3Sg Dat 'the person for whom you worked'

Especially with spatiotemporal phrases, an implied spatial postposition may be omitted (772). (772)

ban di kaa ne belesi njay go kaa sofaara day Def Rel Foe B N Impf come S 'the day (in) which Belesi Ndiaye was coming to Sofara (town)'

In situ cases occur in texts. (773a) is emended from a slightly broken textual example, but the emended portion (qu for a) is not relevant to the point at hand. (773b-c) are also textual examples. (773)

a.

b.

c.

a dan^qu jente di [woo di kama gaa] 3SgS do ~ 3ReflSg learning Def [Dem Def Rel on] 'that onex with whom, hey did hisy apprenticeship* gga nda [ay koy brousse di yoo noijgu di yoo kama la] 3SgFand [ISgS go bush Def PI place Def PI Rel Loc] 'In addition, whatever places in the rural areas I have gone to,...' ni kaa tun [daliil di kaa see] 2SgS come arise [purposeDef Rel Dat] 'the purpose for which you (came and) arose.'

412

Appendix 2 Rel kama may also follow a spatial postposition, as in (774a-b).

(774)

a.

tira-feer-ey di go da [handi di la kama] ritual Def Impf be-done [day Def Loc Rel] On the day (when) the ritual is performed' b. no-o kuηgu [jaman di la kama] 2SgS-Impf be-full [era Def Loc Rel] '(back) in the days when you were well-fed'

The postposition is generally Locative la, and la kama is more frequent in texts than kama la. It appears that this usage involves backgrounded clauses, and it may be that the final PP is not the actual relativized noun. Consider now (775). (775)

jenne wane di [wo-o kuubi-ndi] di Djenne" Poss Def [3SgS-Impf curve-Mediop] Def kama wo-o yurru gumo Rel 3SgS-Impf be-smooth very "The way the Djenne" one is curved, it is very smooth.'

Here the Def di (after a verb) suggests a covert nominal (perhaps 'manner')

8.3.4 Relativization of NP complements of nda 'with, and' The preposition nda ~ nna ~ na seems to be stranded with trace representing the fronted Rel kaa in (776). However, since 3SgO ga is sometimes omitted (or realized as zero) after postverbal nda (see §4.1.6, above), it is not entirely certain that we are dealing with a trace, rather than a (resumptive) pronoun that happens to have zero expression. (776)

hay kur kaa i cin_^ gu-yo_^ ο faaba mali na thing all Rel 3P1S say" LogoPIS Impf help Mali with 'everything, which, they said they would help Mali with tx '

A different pattern with double nda is apparently seen in (777). (777)

hay kur kaa nda ay sogor nda thing all Rel with ISgS worry with 'anything that I was worried about'

However, this may have been an internally restarted clause ('anything that— , if I was worried about it').

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8.3.5 Relativization of possessor NP (778) shows the pattern, with kaa - kama preceding the possessed NP. (778)

a.

ay guna toro hirjka kaa maa si Jeff ISgS see person two Rel name be J Ί have seen (=met) two men whose name is Jeff.' b. ndarka yoo yaa, kaa gumo di yoo go mari hammer PI Emph,Rel head Def PI Impf be-thin 'some hammers, whose heads are narrow'

When something intervenes between Rel morpheme and the possessed NP, a resumptive pronoun can occur. In (779a), the 2Sg pronoun is coindexed with generic bor 'person*. (779)

a.

b.

na bor kaa mor-ciino ni kufie go mey hin-ey if person Rel now 2Sg husband Impf have means 'if (you are) someonex whox now yourx husband has means' derbe beer woo kaa yo-o jore garment large Dem Rel 3PlS-Impf embroider [a jine here di] [3 S g front area Def] 'this big garment (=boubou)x, which, they embroider its, front'

8.3.6 Adverbial relatives without postpositions Simple adverbial clauses with temporal or spatial sense are formed by preposing a phrase of the minimal type [X Rel ...] to an indicative clause, where X is a noun meaning roughly 'place' or 'time' and Rel is, as usual, kaa or kama. Examples are han^kaa... 'when ..." (ha~ han or handi 'day'), saa di kaa ... 'when ...' (saa 'time' with Def di), and non^ kaa ... 'where ...' or 'when ...' (noqgu 'place'). Note that the spatial form non^ kaa ... can extend loosely into temporal function. Some of these phrases may be acrolectal, reflecting KCh influence, which might explain why kaa (the Rel morpheme shared with KCh) is more common than kama (though the latter is attested, e.g. saa di kama ...). A more characteristic DjCh phrasing is X kur kama ... (without Def di), showing the uniquely DjCh Rel variant kama, and using kur ~ kul 'all' even in nongeneralizing contexts: saa kul kama ... 'when ...' or 'whenever...', non^ kul kama ... 'where ...' or 'wherever ...' (780). ~ (780)

non^ kul kama baana kar, yo-o duma place all Rel rain strike, 3PlS-Impf sow 'When it rains, they sow millet.'

hayni millet

414

Appendix 2

Another authentic DjCh construction is to leave the spatiotemporal NP in situ (not fronted to clause-initial position). In this case, however, the construction is more regular and literal. The noun is usually unreduced, it may be followed by Def di, kul is not used as loosely as in clause-initial cases, and the nouns stick closely to their core lexical sense. An example is (781). (781)

baana di kar norjgu di kama bii, rain Def strike place Def Rel yesterday, yo-o kaa duma 3PlS-Impf come sow 'There where the rain fell yesterday, they will (come and) sow (millet).'

8.3.8 Relativization out of complex syntactic structures In (782) we have fronting of the relativized NP out of an embedded subjunctive clause.

(782)

woo gga si marjgoro di kaa Rel Dem SFoc be mango Def [ay baa ay ma qaa t] [ISgS want ISgS Subju eat t] 'This [focus] is the mango, that I want to eat tx .'

However, this was an elicited example, and the usual pattern in such examples is to front the relativized NP (thus approximating the French cues). I do not have a wide range of relevant textual data, but (783), with an embedded indicative (quotative) complement, suggests that in situ relatives are compatible with clausal embedding. (783)

ni bar ay see goy taka jeen-o di kama 2SgS say ISg Dat work kind old-Adj Def Rel '(with) the old manner of working that you told me of

8.3.9 DF morphemes and postpositions operating on the head NP In (784), the Dat postposition see, whose complement is the bracketed complex NP, is optionally omitted, presumably to avoid an ungainly sentence-final double postposition.

(784)

ay noo nerfu ISgSgive money

di Def

cindi butigi di kuna] (see) (Dat) Def Loc] [man Rel stay shop Ί gave the money to the man who was still in the shop.'

[har

di Def

kaa

Djenne Chiini

415

8.4.1 Proposed topical constituents, with or without Topic bine Aside from preposed cases, bine can also be used as a clause-final particle. (785)

wor ο tiisa woo di yoo bine, wor o tiisa ga 2P1S Impf fix Dem Def PI Top, 2P1S Impf fix 3SgO [[[yow di yoo kama] go kaa] yaa] ba ? [[[stranger Def PI Rel] Impf come] Emph] yes-no? 'Regarding your(Pl) making those, do you make it (for) the foreigners who come?'

8.4.2 Use of 3F (full third person) pronouns The syntax of 3SgF and 3P1F pronouns is the same as in KCh. As we have noted, 3P1F ηgu-yo and variants is not distinguishable phonetically from Logo/3ReflPl pronouns.

8.4.3 Use of weak Topic marker ta Weak Top morpheme ta is extremely common. It is used after NPs (including pronouns), PPs, and clauses. It is not to be confused with Future ta (which occurs only between Impf and the verb).

8.5 Emphatics and similatives The most common emphatics are daa Only'Jaau '(one-)self, and focalizing yaa. See next section for usage. For clause-final dee and mee see §8.5.7. Emphatic morphemes like yaa precede postpositions like Dat see (786), as in KCh.

(786)

a noo ga [[[ay 3SgS give 3SgO [[[ISg 'He gave it to you and me.'

na ni] yaa] see] and 2SgS] Emph] Dat]

sanda ~ sanna means 'like', either specifying similarity of one entity to another (after a NP) or acting as a hedging or hesitation expression (before any phrase or clause). A predication 'X is like Y' can be expressed with the verb bar-sanna. However, close perceptual similarity is usually expressed by the phrase type 'you would think X' (=it looked just like X).

416

Appendix 2

8.5.l Simple emphatics (daa,jaaß -jaatin, yaä) daa is common after NPs and clauses, but its usage differs considerably from that of its Timbuktu KCh counterpart. The usual sense when it occurs after a noun is Only', as in jingar daa kuna Only on a holiday (not at other times)' (see next section). It can also be used linking two clauses, emphasizing that the completion of the first eventuality immediately precedes the second eventuality: , (only) then B' or 'as soon as A, B', as in (787). In this function, DjCh daa corresponds functionally to KCh dee. (787)

wor o goy daa yo-o bana wor [na haynijl 2P1S Impf work Emph 3PlS-Impf pay 2P1O [with millet]? 'When you (goldsmiths) work, do they then pay you with millet (grain)?'

jaaß-jaatin occurs after NPs ('myself, 'himself) and clauses ('indeed'). yaa is primarily a focalizing particle after NPs, but since focalization in (basilectal) DjCh does not involve fronting, yaa can still be classified as a local emphatic rather than as a syntactic morpheme. Subject focus is usually expressed by SFoc qga, but some speakers use yaa here too (§8.1.2). The sequence of NP (or pronoun) plus jaaß may be followed by yaa in focalizing function: jaaß yaa ... 'it was right here [focus] that ..." However, I have also recorded... yaa jaaß. An apparent clause-final emphatic ke! was attested once in a narrative.

8.5.2 Only' (nin, tä ~ tan, koon, daa) rii ~ nin and tä ~ tan Only* are attested in the texts, chiefly with clausal scope, but seem to be used by only some speakers. NP koon 'NP alone* or 'a mere NP' is also attested several times. Only NP' is usually expressed as N P daa, or as NP daa foo with foo One' (788). (788)

almisimi daa foo go hirow Muslim Emph one Impf enter Only a Muslim (may) enter a mosque.'

jingar-ey mosque

8.5.3 'Unless' and 'except' na^ a na ci ga, literally 'if it isn't it,' is common in the sense Otherwise' ('else'). 'Unless' can be expressed by bara nda..., literally 'except if..." 'Except X* where X is a NP is bara X. Typically, bara X can be analysed as a reduction of a more complex construction. Examples in (789).

Djenne Chiini (789)

a.

b.

a si hin^ ka dira bara taam 3SgS ImpfNeg can Inf walk except shoe 'She can't walk except (with) shoes.' a si hin^ ka fata bara [ay na 3SgS ImpfNeg caiT Inf exit except [ISg and 'Hex can't go out without me.' (lit., '...except [I and hex]')

417

ijga] 3SgF]

8.5.7 dee, mee Clause-final dee has mild adversarial sense ('mind you') (790), or adds a warning touch to an imperative ('now!'). (790)

tombi, a n Si hantum dee, tombi nono dot, 3SgS Neg be writing Emph, dot it-is ust 'Dots. It wasn't writing, mind you, it was (J ) dots.'

mee! is attested as a clause-final emphatic, giving a stronger warning or threatening nuance to an imperative: kaa mee! 'come, for God's sake!'

8.5.8 baada, wallaahi, laabüdda laa-budda~ laa-burda means 'probably, perhaps'. I have recorded baada only in the adverbial phrase baada banda 'afterward', wallaahi 'by God* is well-attested in in oaths, and may be followed by bara before the substantive assertion.

8.5.9 wala Or' in emphatic sense 'even...' wala Or' means 'even' when preposed to a NP in the absence of a preceding disjunct (791), especially under negation. (791)

a na noo ey [wala 3SgS Neg give ISgO [even 'He didn't give me even one riyal.'

allaara riyal

foo] one]

Where wala 'even' seems to have VP scope ('he didn't even ...'), it is proposed to the entire clause (792a-b). (792)

a.

b.

a koy wala a na tilsa [rjgu jiney di yoo] 3SgS go even 3SgS Neg prepare [3ReflSg gear Def PI] 'He went, without even packing up his belongings.' wala a na foo even 3SgS Neg greet 'She didn't even say hello.'

418 Appendix 2 9.1.1 Ordering and pronominal cliticization The ordering of postverbal constituents appears to be much as in KCh, with pronominal objects coming first, then pronominal adpositional phrases, then definite (or otherwise "old") NPs, then indefinite NPs. Examples in (793a-b). (793)

a. no-o kow^ i see i cirkose 2SgS-Impf remove 3P1 Dat 3P1 lunch 'You would take out (=pay) theirx lunch for themx.' b. wo-o hin_^ ka dey [qu gumo see] 3SgS-Impf can" Inf buy [3ReflSg head Dat] 'She can buy a garment for herself.'

derbe garment

However, a pronominal PP follows a nonpronominal object NP more often than in KCh. This is most common when the object NP is a simple one like demonstrative woo di 'that one' as in (794), but there are occasional textual examples with more substantial NPs. (794)

a oin^ qgu^ ο kaa kay-ndi [woo djj a see 3SgS say LogoSgS Impf come stand-Caus [Dem DefJ 3Sg Dat 'Hex said hex would come and set that up for it.'

9.1.2 Double-object constructions ('give', 'show') noo 'give' most often has a canonical direct object plus dative construction even when the indirect object is a first or second person pronoun, as in (795).

(795)

yo-o noo ga [ni see] 3PlS-Impf give 3SgO [2Sg Dat] "They will give it to you.' b. suba na ay kaa noo ni see tomorrow if ISgS come give 2Sg Dat 'tomorrow, if I come and give you one hundred' a.

jaqgu hundred

The double-object construction seems to be rare, but is attested (796). (796)

i noo ga [huriya kayna] 3P1S give 3SgO [knife-let small] "They gave him the little knife.'

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9.3.4 Equivalents of negative polarity items For '(not...) anything', the NP may be haya foo ('thing one') or just haya ('thing'): hay a (foo) si ηεε 'there is nothing here.' In this instance, the polarity item precedes the negative (si 'not be').

9.5 Clause conjunction and indicative complement clauses Indicative complement clauses in DjCh sometimes begin with na (variant nda), perhaps a special use of the 'if particle (§9.5.1). Some examples of nonconditional na are given in (797a-b). (797)

a.

bara na ay cindi must with ISgS remain Ί must remain.' b. ni si hangu na 2SgS ImpfNeg think if woo andama-yje woo go mey biiri moo fey! Dem Adam-child Dem Impf have bone also at-all! 'You wouldn't think that this person has any bones at all!'

bara na in (797a) may have a modal value (perhaps inevitability) distinct from that of the obligational construction with bara followed by subjunctive clause (§9.6.2). However, (797a) can also mean 'unless I remained' in other contexts, with na 'if. For bara 'except, unless', see §5.9.9. In (797b), it is possible that na is the Instr-Comit morpheme 'with', though this morpheme is not otherwise clearly attested in Instr-Comit function with a clausal complement. Compare (798), with nominal complement. (798)

no-o hangu na 2SgS-Impf think with 'You are thinking about what?'

maal what?

9.5.1 Conditionals (na ... , wala ...) The basic conditional is like that of KCh, beginning with na - nda 'if, supposing that, when'. The common variant in this position is na. In (799), Emph daa emphasizes the immediacy of the consequent. (799)

na wicir too daa, yo-o nan^ ga musoo di if late-afternoon arrive Emph,3PlS-Impfleave 3SgO manner Def Once the late afternoon has arrived, they will put it aside thus.'

420

Appendix 2 As a complement of a verb like 'know', nda can mean 'whether', as in (800).

(800)

na ciimi nono wala na_^ a na δι ciimi if truth it-is or if 3SgS Neg be truth '(I want to know) whether it is the truth, or whether it is not the truth.'

DjCh often combines clause-initial na with a relative clause. The resulting combinations frequently function to introduce a discourse referent (often indefinite or generic) which will play a role in the following sentence. For discussion see §8.3. We also occasionally get na at the beginning of a participial background clause; see §9.5.11. wala Or, even' is also used as in KCh to mean 'even if (801). (801)

wala ay duu njerfu di mor-ciino, even ISgS get money Def now, [woo boon a la] jiiri tanaa... [probably] year other... 'Even if I got the money now, it would probably be another year (before...)'

9.5.3 Juxtaposed clauses in adverbial function ('while', 'without') An example is (802). (802)

yo-o hin^ ka dan^ jiiri muumoy di kur 3PlS-Impf can Inf do year entire Def all [i go derbe-yje foo yaa gaa] [3P1S be clothing-child one Emph on] 'They might spend the entire year (while they are) working on one small textile.'

9.5.5 Adversative conjunctions kaa~rjkaa 'but' occurs clause-initially (803). This resembles kaa 'but' in GN, but in view of the (optional) nasal the source for the DjCh form may be Bambara nka instead (803)

a.

baana go hin ka kar moreydo, nkaa wo-o sendu rain Impf can Inf strike now, but 3SgS-Impf be-rare 'Rain can strike (=fall) now (=at this season), but it's unusual.' b. a jSS, kaa bar moreyda a go goy 3SgS be-old, but until now 3SgS Impf work 'He has gotten old, but he is (still) working to this day.'

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9.5.6 jaa 'since', hal ~ bar 'until, before', ka-nnaand ma-nna 'as long as' jaa and hal as clause-initial particles are exemplified in (804-5). (804)

[saa di] jaa woo di ta bisa ta [time Defj since Dem Def Top pass Top 'So then, that (=prosperity) has already passed (=ended).' na n dan^ kottu di ka be, hal if 2SgS do" cut Def Inf end, until ni moo ma bey mor-ciino ta kottu di—a too 2Sg too Subju know now Top cut Def 3SgS suffice 'If (=when) you finish making the cut, so that you too know that now the cutting—, it (=one cut) is sufficient, ...'

(805)

DjCh also has a special clause-initial element meaning 'as long as' or 'during the time when", in two variants: ka-nna~ ka-nnan and ma-nna~ ma-nnan. These forms look like they may be compressions of former phrases; for the onsets cf. Inf ka and Subju ma. For ma-nna there is a 2P1 variant wo ma-nna, apparently with 2P1 imperative wo, suggesting that ma-nna is a singular imperative, n ~ nan could be taken as the verb 'leave, let', in the sense 'cause, account for'. However, we will not attempt to segment the forms. Examples in (806); in (806b) locational quasi-verb go 'be' is apparently realized as zero after wor. (806)

a.

b.

ka-nnan [tubaabo yoo go kaa], yer^ ta yer o duu goy as-long [white PI Impf come], 1 PI Top IPlSImpfget work 'As long as whites come (here), as for us, we'll have some work.' ma-nna [wor ηεε jenne ηεε] as-long [2P1S here Djenne here] 'as long as you(Pl) are here in Djenno'

9.5.7 'Because* clauses 'Because' ismaa see, literally 'to (for) what?', as in (807). For the sense 'why?' see §8.2.3.

(807)

ay si nin ga maa see ISgS ImpfNeg drink 3SgO what? Dat Ί don't drink it, because it's bitter.'

a go hor 3SgS Impf be-bitter

9.5.8 'That' complements The verb cl ~ ein 'say' can be added (in serial construction) to a preceding verb like bey 'know', the result being somewhat similar to a quotative 'that' (808).

422

(808)

Appendix 2

no-o bey ka SJ 2SgS-Impf know Inf say 'You know (=realize) that...'

' ... ' ' ... '

Rel kaa ~ kama is not in regular use as a 'that' complementizer. However, there are cases where kaa... appears to be used as a complementizer introducing background clauses describing situations prevailing at the time of a foregrounded event. One could connect this with e.g. han^kaa... 'when ...' (ha~ ban 'day'), cf. §8.3.6, and claim that kaa ... is a reduction of a similar relative clause. An example is (809). (809)

ay fiin attey kaa sukal si^ a ISgS drink tea when sugar not-be 3Sg drank tea with no sugar in it (=without sugar).'

kuna Loc

9.5.9 Bare indicative complements (gar, barä) gar'find' is common with an indicative clause as complement '... find (that ...)'. For bara na ... plus indicative clause, see §9.6.2.

9.5.10 Right-edge marking in antecedents and background clauses kur(or kui) 'all' is common as a right-edge marker (like KCh kul.). kur in right-edge marking function may be extended as kur maraa-nte just as in NP-quantifying function (§5.4.3). Other forms like a-kur di with AbsolSg a- and Def di are occasionally attested in right-edge marking function. Def di is recorded at the end of background clauses. In (810), di follows a simple clause and is in turn followed by Rel kama. It appears that di is a kind of propositional definite ('the fact that ...'), and Rel kama is attached to this propositional entity (rather than to a specific clause-internal NP). (810)

[wo-o kuubi-ndi] [3SgS-Impf curve-Mediop] 'Given the way it is curved,...'

di Def

kama Rel

9.5.11 Backgrounded participial clauses DjCh uses participles in -nie (§4.3.4) in backgrounded clauses ('you having entered the house, he got up ...'). The participial clause is resultative and sets the stage for the next (foregrounded) event. Such participial clauses are usually simple, often just a subject NP and a motion or stance verb (811 a), though more complex clauses are attested. The participial clause usually has a subject distinct from that of the following foregrounded clause, but this is not a syntactic rule and a few cases of coreferentiality

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occur in texts. When a serial-verb construction is participialized, the first of the two verbs is marked by -/lie (81 Ib-d). (811)

a.

b.

c.

d.

[a kaa-nte] [ay guna ga moreyda] [3SgS come-Partpl] [ISgS see 3SgO now] Ί saw him right after he came (back).' [baana di kay-nte ka ben], [fufu di [rain Def stop-Partp! Inf end], [coldness Def 'After the rain (rainy season) stops, the cold weather begins.' [a yee-nte ka kaa] [3SgS return-Partpl Inf come] 'when he has come back,...' [a duu-bumo-nte ka goy] [3SgS get-head-Partpl Inf work] 'when he has finished working,...'

sinti] begin]

Nonzero MAN morphemes do not appear to be possible in participial clauses. As a result, we could consider interpreting the "subject" as a possessor, and take the participle as syntactically nominal: '(with, after) his coming.' (Pronouns have the same forms as subjects and as possessors.) However, participles are only infrequently used as verbal nouns in other constructions. Backgrounded participial clauses are similar in function to conditional antecedents with na 'if. The combination of the two in a single clause occurs occasionally (812). (812)

na woo di kur hun-nte, i go duu if Dem Def all leave-Partpl, 3P1S Impf get '... when all that is over, they proceed to go ...'

ka Inf

koy ... go ...

Such examples are reminiscent of the combination of na 'if with relative clauses in similar backgrounded contexts (§8.3). Backgrounded participial constructions are apparently absent from KCh.

9.6 Subjunctive complements Aside from the syntactic contexts (generally shared with KCh) described in sections below, we have textual examples in DjCh where the subjunctive is used in clauses denoting alternative possibilities. Consider (813), where the speaker is describing a range of typical situations. The first clause is indicative, while others denoting alternatives are phrased in the subjunctive.

424 Appendix 2 (813)

yer o dey ga na hayni, 1 PIS Impf spend 3SgO on millet, ou bien yer ma dey ga na moo-kogosi, else 1P1S Subju spend 3SgO on unshelled-rice, ou bien yer ma dey ga na moo-yje else 1P1S Subju spend 3SgO on shelled-rice 'We spend it (=earnings) on millet, or (maybe) we spend it on unshelled rice, or (maybe) we spend it on shelled rice.'

9.6.1 Subjunctive complements to matrix-clause verbs (814) is an example with tusa as matrix verb. (814)

ay ija tusa ga ISg SFoc incite 3SgO [a ma kar qu kayna di] [3SgS Subju hit 3ReflSg younger-sibling Def] 'It was I [focus] who egged him on to hit his younger brother.'

9.6.2 Subjunctive complements of obligational bara (815a) shows the usual construction with impersonal bara 'must' plus subjunctive clause. For bara na see §9.5. (815)

bara [ay must [ISgS Ί must remain.'

ma Subju

cindi] remain]

French pour que can nowadays be used with a subjunctive clause (816). It can alternatively take infinitival VP complements, see (824) in §9.7.1, below. (816)

pour que yer ma kaa yer ma duu buna so-that 1P1S Subju come 1P1S Subju get life 'so that we might come and get (=earn) a subsistence (livelihood)'

bara can also take a simple NP complement: bara X 'X is necessary.' This can perhaps be construed as a reduced clausal complement ('it is necessary that X be present').

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9.6.3 Subjunctive clauses in jussive reported speech Sl~ din 'say* plus subjunctive clause is the usual jussive construction ('he told me to go'). Sometimes 'say' is omitted, but its virtual presence can be inferred by an otherwise unmotivated shift to subjunctive (817). (817)

a yee ka cerbu yer see boro tanaa yoo, 3SgS repeat Inf show 1P1 Dat person other PI, yer ma koy faaba... 1P1S Subju go help ... 'He showed us some more people, (telling) us to go help ..."

9.6.4 Subjunctive clauses with complementizers (hal, bilaa, yala -yara) Clause-initial yala ~ yara 'hopefully' (
yala [a ma kaa] hopefully [3SgS Subju come] 'Hopefully he'll come' (= 'May he come!')

9.6.5 Subjunctive clauses under the scope of a distant trigger As in KCh, some grammatical elements can be thought of as "weak" subjunctive triggers; while the clause they occur in is indicative, a following clause which elaborates on or paraphrases the indicative clause shifts into subjunctive. Consider (819). (819)

yara wo-o sinti ka jow harjga-korbo wane kuubi di, hoping 3SgS-Impf begin Inf take earring Poss curve Def, a ma jow a wane jaatey di 3SgS Subju take 3Sg Poss shape Def '(one curves the metal), expecting that it will begin to take on the curvature of an earring, that it may take its (=earring's) shape.'

yara plus indicative clause seems to indicate expectation or wondering, rather than hope as with subjunctive complements (preceding section). The propositional material under the scope of yara in the first clause ('it begin to ...') is paraphrased by the second clause ('take its shape'), yara is not repeated in this second clause, which therefore shifts into the subjunctive to show that it is still within the modal world of the first clause. If the second clause were expressed in the indicative, its modal subordination might not be apparent.

426 Appendix 2 In (820), we see a similar phenomenon where a subjunctive clause elaborates on a preceding indicative relative clause with generic subject. Such generic relatives arc somewhat hypothetical (when applied to specific individuals like 'you'), and so can be thought of as weak subjunctive triggers. Without the subjunctive shift, it might not be apparent that the second clause is modally hedged. (820)

maa see aadama-yje yoo kaa wor tun [nda cere], what?Dat Adam-child PI Rel 2P1S arise [with friend], woo di wor ma dir a cere,... Dem Def 2P1S Subju walk friend, ... 'Because human beings, whox you(Pl)x were brought up together, that is to say you(Pl) went around together,...'

In (821), the subjunctive clause is effectively under the scope of the negation in the following clause. (821)

koyra di ma waafaku, a si hin^ ka duu fas! city Def Subju agree, 3SgS ImpfNeg can Inf be-had at-all! 'For the city to be at peace, it couldn't happen at all!'

9.6.6 Bare subjunctive clauses with no overt trigger A subjunctive clause with no overt trigger may occur in a narrative to indicate that the event denoted is intended by one of the agents. For example, '3Sg go to the river (indicative), 3Sg go across (subjunctive)' means 'he went to the river, intending to go across.' A double subjunctive construction involving two paired subjunctive clauses with no trigger (overt or implied) means 'no sooner X than Y,' as in (822), where we give the preceding context to show that this would not otherwise be a subjunctive context. (822)

/ koy too koyra di la, i too-nte di, 3P1S go reach town Def Loc, 3P1S reach-Partpl Def, koyra di gurjgu, town Def inside, [rjgi ta ma too], [i ma guna] [3P1F Top Subju reach]. [3P1S Subju look] "They went and arrived in the town. Having arrived inside the town, no sooner did they arrive than they looked.'

9.7. Infinitival VPs and serial verbs Serial verb constructions can be treated as units for purposes of forming participial background clauses; see examples (8llb-d) in §9.5.11. For infinitival VPs after hal ~ bar 'until', see §5.9.8.

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9.7.1 Infinitival VPs in event sequences (823a) shows the typical infinitival sequence ('take', 'throw', 'aim'), though 'throw' and 'aim' are really different aspects of a single action. In (823b), the type hem ka hem 'weep and weep' indicates prolongation; perhaps this is really a special type of verb-verb compound rather than a sequence. JJ«—JiJ

(823)

TV VVLS

UllU

T» WWLJ

lIlXAlVtllVk)

L/4 \Ji\JH£*Λ\·*ι

a.

faran duu ka din^ ga, ka warra ga, F get Inf take 3SgO, Inf throw 3SgO, ka teqg&-ndi ga beene Inf direct 3SgO up 'Faran proceeded to take it, and throw it, and aim it upwards.' b. jinni woy di ije di jow ka hem ka hem djinn woman Def child Def take Inf weep Inf weep 'The child of the female djinn threw himself into weeping and (more) weeping.'

In one passage (824), Infinitive ka follows French pour que 'so that' in an event sequence. Contrast the subjunctive complement of pour que in (816), §9.6.2, above. The effect is like French pour plus infinitive (pour chercher...). (824)

... ka koy goy, pour que ka wir atam kayna quoi ... Inf go work, so-that Inf seek grain little indeed '... and go work, in order to try to earn a little grain.'

9.7.2 Inventory of serial verbs We present the verbs in the sections below. Differences vis- -vis KCh are few; see especially the use of wir (§9.7.3), kaa 'come' (§9.7.7), and the apparent absence of tiisa as serial verb (§9.7.6). 9.7.3 Control verbs Examples are yadda ka VP 'consent to VP' (yadda has several pronunciation variants), and wir ka VP 'be on the verge of VP-ing' (825). (825)

wo-o wir ka moqgu dira-ka-yaabi 3SgS-Impf seek Inf be-unable walk-Inf-stride 'He was on the verge of becoming unable to walk fast.'

X faaba Υ [ka VP] means 'X help Υ to VP' (where X and Υ are joint agents of the action denoted by the VP). This follows the KCh pattern.

428

Appendix 2

9.7.4 Modal serial verbs hin^ ka VP 'can VP' and hima ka VP 'should VP, ought to VP' are common.

9.7.5 Aspectual serial verbs With the serial verb after the substantive VP we can cite VP ka be 'finish VP-ing'. With the serial verb in the normal construction, preceding the substantive VP, we have baa ka VP 'nearly VP', sinti ka VP 'begin to VP', bey ka VP 'have (ever) VP-ed', cindi ka VP 'continue to VP, habitually VP', doonay ka VP 'be accustomed to VP', duu ka VP 'proceed to VPJow ka VP 'launch into VP-ing', kokoro ka VP 'have recently VP-ed' (kokoro also attested with indicative complement), yee ka VP 'VP again, re-VP'. duu ka VP 'proceed to VP' is common, but in DjCh it gets some competition from kaa VP with kaa 'come' (see §9.7.7).

9.7.6 Quantifying and negative serial verbs lilsa 'prepare' does not seem to be used as a serial verb '(do) very much, (do) well'. The functional equivalent of this KCh serial- verb construction is to add gumo 'well* as a postverbal adverb. je ~jen is used in the negative sense 'fail to', like KChjen. VP [ka tontö] means 'VP some more (additionally)', with tonto ~ tonton 'add, augment' .

9.7.7 Motion and time-of-day verbs as serial verbs koy 'go' and kaa 'come' do not require Inf ka when followed by a VP. (826)

a.

b.

ay koy taasi ay baa-koy di yoo ISgS go search ISg friend Def PI went and looked for my friends.' a kaa koy hirow maale-bana-terey di 3SgS come go enter master-slave-hood Def 'He proceeded to go and enter into apprenticeship.'

kuna Loc

For some speakers, kaa in serial construction with a following VP becomes ka ta VP (compare KCh kaa ta VP). koy usually has its literal motion sense when followed by a VP, as in (826a). kaa, on the other hand, often simply establishes that there has been an interval of time vis-ä-vis the preceding event (or the time of speaking), and can be translated either as future tense (§7.2.5) or, in a narrative context, as 'proceed to VP' (after a time interval) as in (826b). DjCh narrative has some unusual elaborations of such motionverb sequences (827).

Djenne Chiini (827)

429

/' kaa ka kaa koy too [batu di kuna] 3P1S come Inf come go arrive[crowd Def Loc] 'They came and proceeded to go into the midst of the crowd.'

Here the first kaa seems to have the literal sense 'come', while in kaa koy too the kaa has its typical serial-verb sense. Note that Inf ka is used after the true verb 'come' but not after the more grammaticalized serial-verb kaa. In (828), the same surface string ... kaa ka kaa ... seen in (827) has a slightly different analysis, since the first kaa is now bracketed with the preceding yee 'return'. (828)

... [ka [yee [ka kaa]]] [ka [kaa kani...]] ... [Inf [return [Inf come]]] [Inf [come lie-down...]] '... and came back, and proceeded to lie down ...'

(828) also illustrates yee 'return' as serial verb. Time-of-day verbs attested as serial verbs (with following ka VP) are biyaa 'do at daybreak', hoy 'do at mid-day', and banana 'do at night*.

9.7.8 Comparative constructions bisa 'surpass' can occur in a serial verb construction before the substantive VP, especially with simple substantive VPs like quality adjectives (829a). bisa can also follow the substantive VP, and this pattern is more usual with complex substantive VPs, since the comparandum can be expressed simply as a direct object of bisa (829b). (829)

a. jenne wane di yaa bisa ka boon na Djenne Poss Def Emph surpass Inf be-pretty than (3SgO) 'The Djenne" one (=a style of earrings) is prettier than it (Macina style).' b. wala mor-ciino yaa duu go^ a kuna or now Emph profit be 3Sg in ka bisa lawar di ? Inf surpass old-times Def? '... or is there more profit in it (=work) now than in the old days?'

In type (829a), the comparandum is expressed as na X (or nda X) 'than X'. When X is 3SgO ga, it is often omitted (or reduced phonetically to zero) after na, as in (829), cf. (729) in §4.1.6, above, bisa 'surpass' is sometimes found with naX 'than X' as comparandum, as an alternative to direct-object status. Simple adjectives directly form comparatives with na X (830a) or with simple direct object X (830b). (831) is an example of a superlative; note the 'all' quantifier. Intransitive sawa 'be equal' and transitive too 'attain* express equality or symmetry (832). In (832b), the substantive domain is expressed as an unmarked postverbal noun bey.

430 (830)

(831)

(832)

Appendix 2 a.

a beer na^ ey 3SgS be-big than ISgO 'He is bigger (=older) than I.' b. a jen ey 3SgS be-old ISgO 'He is older than I.' [yer kur har beer] si qga yaa [1P1 all man big] be 3SgF Emph 'The oldest man of us all is he.' a. [ay na ga kur] rjaa di go sawa [ISgS and 3SgO all] eating Def Impf be-equal 'He and I eat equally as much.' b. a si too ni bey 3SgS ImpfNeg attain 2SgO knowledge 'He does not equal you in knowledge.' c. a si qaa ka too ni 3SgS ImpfNeg eat Inf attain 2SgO 'He does not eat as much as you.'

A comparative with a full clause as apparent comparandum is shown in (833). Perhaps this clause is really a reduction of a relative clause ('the manner in which you do it'). (833)

woo di rjga^ o yaraasün na wor o da Dem Def SFoc Impf be-easy than 2P1S Impf do 'It is that (method) [focus] which is easier than (the way) you do (it).'

10.2.1 Compound reflexives (bumo 'head') The word for 'head' is bumo. Compound reflexives are of the type ay bumo 'myself, gu bumo 'himself, herself, etc.

10.2.3 Reflexive verbs In the sense 'get ready', hisa is normally a reflexive verb (834a), while landina (cf. KCh lelindi) is either a simple intransitive verb (834b) or a reflexive verb (834c). (834)

a.

b.

ay go koy ISgS Impf go 'I'll go get ready.' a landina 3SgS prepare 'She got ready.'

tiisa^ ey fix" ISgO

Djenne Chiini c.

a landina 3SgS prepare

431

ggu 3RefISgO

N>] One construction popular in DjCh is to use n ~ nan 'leave, abandon' as a reflexive verb, in senses like 'intervene (in quarrel), speak up (in discussion)' (835). (835)

y sac ka nan^ ijgu-yo doodi 3P1S jump Inf lea~ve 3ReflPlO there 'They jumped in and spoke up (in the discussion) there.'

Other attested reflexive verbs are here 'transform oneself (into ...)', jubaa 'flop around, flounder', kufu 'lather up', maraa 'assemble', and ςειτε ~ sarra 'form straight line'.

10.2.4 Syntax of reflexive pronouns Compound bumo reflexives are common as direct object or postpositional complement, coindexed with the clause-mate subject (836a-b). (836)

a.

b.

i si naaney ggu-yo bumo 3 PI S ImpfNeg trust 3ReflPlhead "They don't trust themselves.'

wo-o

maraa [rjgu

nerfu

di] [qgu

bumo see]

3SgS-Impf gather [SReflSg money Def] [3ReflSg head Dat] 'He will keep his money for himself.' A simple 3Refl pronoun (e.g. 3ReflSg ijgu ~ rju) is used prototypically in possessor function, attached to a postverbal NP. Again, the reflexive is coindexed to the clause subject (837a). The 3Refl pronoun is also used in right conjuncts (837b). (837)

a.

b.

a go hima [rjgu hasey] 3SgS Impf resemble [SReflSg uncle] 'He resembles his uncle.' qa nda [iju baba] 3SgF and [3ReflSg father] 'she and her father'

There is one textual example which (conceivably) shows that a direct object NP may serve as antecedent for a 3Refl possessor on a following postverbal NP, unlike the case in KCh. This is (838a), if parsed monoclausally as 'he goes and finds [the womanj [at herx house].' However, the syntax may really be biclausal 'he goes and finds (that) [the woman, (is) at herx house]' with omitted 'be' verb, in which case the 3ReflSg qu in 'her house' has the normal clause-mate subject antecedent. (838b), from

432

Appendix 2

another text, shows that direct-object antecedents are not normal (we get regular 3PI, not 3ReflPl, in the PP.)

(838)

a.

b.

wo-o koy gar woy di 3SgS-Impf go find woman, Def [iju huu] norjgu di doo [3ReflSg x house] place Def at 'He (groom) goes and finds the womanx at herx house.' a ma kow [woo yo jinde d/J [i gaa] 3SgS Subju remove [Dem PI neck Def] [3P1 on] '... that he remove [the neck of thesex] [from themx]' (=behead these)

In (839) we have 3ReflSg rju (following jow 'take' in an embedded subjunctive clause), coindexed with the subject of the matrix clause verb 'let, permit'. The first rju is LogoSg and may be disregarded here. (839)

a ma nan^ [rju ma jow rju] mee 3SgS Subju permit [LogoSgS Subju take 3ReflSgO] Emph '(X told the speary) to permit that hex take ity.'

3Refl pronouns are used (as in KCh) as possessors of right conjuncts, with left conjuncts as antecedents (840).

(840)

ni na ni tuu, ay moo na ay tuu, 2SgS and 2Sg bowl, ISgtoo and ISg bowl, woo moo na ηυ tuu Dem too and 3ReflSgbowl 'you and your bowl, also me and my bowl, also this (guy) and his bowl'

10.2.6 Syntax of reciprocals The typical direct-object and postpositional complement functions are shown in (841a-b). (841)

a.

b.

/ si naaney cere 3 PI S ImpfNeg trust friend "They don't trust each other.' wor ο bar ga [Sere see] 2P1S Impf say 3SgO [friend Dat] 'You(Pl) say it to each other.'

(842) shows cere as a kind of right conjunct, but here the left conjunct 'we' contains all referents involved, so na cere functions semantically like an adverb 'together, collectively'.

Djenne Chiini (842)

433

Iyer na Sere] gay-na [1P1S and friend] endure-with 'We (you and I) have gone a long time without seeing each other."

10.3.1 boro 'person' and 2Sg pronouns The basic KCh pattern holds for DjCh: a generic boro 'person' (or similar human generic) can take 2Sg agreement. In (843), we see the same pattern for the plural, with aadama-yje yoo 'humans' as the generic noun. (843)

aadama-yje yoo kaa wor tun [nda cere] Adam-child PI Rel 2 PI S arise [with friend] 'Human beingsx whox youtPl)^ are brought up together.'

10.3.2 Indefinite human a koy di a koy di 'the fellow' is attested a few times in the texts.

11.1.4 Time expressions (nouns and verbs). The following terms for 'now' (cf. Timbuktu moreyda and extensions, Niafunko mer-ta) were observed in a 1991 textual corpus, the number of occurrences indicated in brackets: mor-ciino [150], mor-ta [75], moreyda [46], moreydoo [9], mor-da [6], mor-doo [6], morey-ciino [0] (known from elicitation).

Text

This monologue was recorded in Timbuktu in 1986. It describes the 1840 battle of Toya in which Tuaregs defeated a force from the Fula "Empire" which had its capital in Hamdallahi (near Mopti). The named personages are Sdkou Amadou, the Fula leader in Hamdallahi, and Amadou Sambourou Kolado, who died at Toya. See Sanankoua (1990) for the historical background. Comments and section references are added in parentheses after the relevant lines.

surgu di Tuareg Def The Tuaregs, (saa di kaa

yo saa di kaa na i sinti— i tusa ka din PI time Def Rel 0 3P1S begin— 3P1S do-much Inf take when they began—. They took a great deal of (na)... 'when...', §8.3.6; serial verb Hisa ka ... §9.7.6)

gandoo alkaasu, i faraa-ndi gi nda laamu, i din this-land tax, 3P1S suffer-Caus 3P1O with rule, 3P1S take this land's taxes, they oppressed them (=local people) with their iron rule. They took (gandoo §4.2.2)

alkaasu di

hal

i

Ksa

ka

faraa-ndi

boro

tax Def until 3P1S do-much Inf suffer-Caus person taxes to the point that they oppressed the people very much.

di

yo,

Def PI

saa di i hantum i se i koy hamdallaay, time Def 3P1S write 3P1 Dat 3P1S go Hamdallahi So, they (=people) wrote to them (=distant leaders). They went to Hamdallahi (a town). (saa di, very end of §8.4.3) /' bar seeku se a ma faaba rjgi-ye nda—, 3P1S say Se"kou Dat 3SgS Subju help LogoPIO with—, Theyx told (=asked) Se"kou (=a leader) to help themx with—, (jussive §9.6.3; logophoric pronoun coindexed with quoted speaker §10.1.1-2; syntax of faaba 'help' end of §9.7.3) ka ycnje surgu di yo, seeku, a gar rjgu wane taalib foo Inf fight Tuareg Def PI, Se"kou, 3SgS find 3ReflSgPoss pupil one (help them) fight the Tuaregs. S6kou, he found one of his (own) pupils (a gar.... often with abstract subject §6.1.1, §9.5.9, but here = Se"kou) kaa se i-i har 'aamadu samburu koolado dursudi', Rel Dat 3PlS-Impf say 'Amadou Sambourou Kolado Dursudi' whom they called 'Amadou Sambourou Kolado Doursoudi', (dative relative with fronted postposition §8.3.3)

Text

435

qga wane taalib foo kaa^ a-a h"isa ka naaney ga, 3SgF Poss pupil one Ref 3SgS-Impf do-much Inf trust 3SgO (who was) a pupil of his (=Se"kou's) whom he (=S£kou) had much confidence in. (parenthetical, not in apposition to 'pupil* above, hence no 3ReflSg possessor; 3SgF is facultative instead of 3Sg in possessor function §8.4.2) seeku bar a se kaa aywa maa na a-a baa ?, S6kou say 3Sg Dat that well, what? Foe 3SgS-Impf want? Sekou asked him (=Amadou), well, what did he (=Amadou) want? (even reported speech often begins with aywa or similar exclamation; WHinterrogatives usually fronted and focalized §8.2.2) wala a-a baa ηgu ma koy yenje walal, or 3SgS-Impf want LogoSgS Subju go fight yes/no? Did he (=Amadou) want to go (to the north) and fight (with the Tuaregs)? (baa 'want' takes finite subjunctive clause even for coreferential subject §9.6. 1 ; in koy yenje 'go to fight, go to battle', yenje can be construed as noun or verb) a bar a se ngu goo, ngu^ ο baa ηgυ 3SgS say 3Sg Dat LogoSgS be, LogoSgS Impf want LogoSgS He (=Amadou) told him (=Sekou), yes he did; he was willing to go (ngu goo is logophoric version of echo answer 'yes I do' §8.2.1)

ma koy Subju go

yenje, a bar a se, aywa nda a koy a si yee-kate, fight, 3SgS say 3Sg Dat, well if 3SgS go 3SgS ImpfNeg return-Centrip, and fight. He (=Sekou) told him, well, if he (=Amadou) went, he would not come back. (typical conditional with perfective antecedent and imperfective consequent §9.5.1) a bar a se qgu^ ο bey, saa di kaa a kani 3SgS say 3SgS Dat LogoSgS Impf know, time Def Rel 3SgS lie-down He (=Amadou) told him that he knew. When he (=Amadou) went to bed (kani variously 'lie down, go to sleep, retire for the night, stay overnight') ka lelinde, qga nda ngu wane maabe di, i bar Inf get-ready, 3SgF and SReflSgPoss griot Def, 3P1S say and got ready (to travel), he and his griot, they (=Amadou and griot) said ( 'griot' is a caste of bards who specialize in singing the praises of nobles) _ ο koy yenje, nga wane w nde di bar a se kaa— LogoPIS Impf go fight, 3SgF Poss wife Def say 3Sg Dat that— that they were going to fight, his (=Amadou's) wife said to him that— ('said they were going to ..." can also mean 'were intending to ...') aamadu bar 'm ? ' a bar a se kaa 'nda n koy, Amadou say 'huh?' 3SgS say 3Sg Dat Rel 'if 2SgS go, Amadaou said, 'what?' She said to him that, 'if you go, (kaa... 'that ..." can be used even with following direct quotation §9.5.8)

436

Text

ni si yee-kate, nda n koy 2SgS ImpfNeg retum-Centrip, if 2Sg go you won't come back; if you go, you'll die there.' (Centripetal suffix §6.3.3)

no-o bun 2SgS-Impf die

dooti,' there,'

a bar a se kaa qgu guna ga jaa aljumaadi ciji 3SgS say 3Sg Dat that LogoSgS see 3SgO since Friday Def night He (=Amadou) told her that he had (fore-)seen it since Friday evening, kaa qgu guna kaa rjgu^ bun, nda qgu koy that LogoSgS see that LogoSgS Impf die, if LogoSgS go that he had (fore-)seen that he was going to die; (he knew that) if he went, (first kaa... 'that...' either delayed complement of 'see', or perhaps used in sense 'such that...' or 'when ...' §8.3.10) ggu si yee-kate, a koy, a bar ga LogoSg ImpfNeg return-Centrip, 3SgS go, 3SgS say 3SgO he would not come back. He (=Amadou) went, (and) he told it baba di se, baba di bar a se kaa tjgu guna ga, father Def Dat, father Def say 3Sg Dat Rel LogoSgS see 3SgO, to the (=his) father. The father told him that he (=father) had (fore-)seen it, nda a koy, a-a bun dooti a si yee-kate, if 3SgS go, 3SgS-Impf die there 3SgS ImpfNeg return-Centrip, if he (=Amadou) went, he would die there without coming back. a bar ijgu guna ga, i ma gaara ggu se, 3Sgs say LogoSgS see 3SgO, 3P1S Subju bless LogoSgS Dat, He (=Amadou) said he had (fore-)seen it, (and asked) that they bless him. (seamless combination of indicative and subjunctive clauses complementing a single instance of bar 'say'; gaara 'bless' takes dative NP) maabe di moo koy qgu wände di doo a bar ga^ a se, griot Def too go 3ReflSg wife Def chez 3SgS say 3SgO 3Sg Dat The griot, for his part, went to his (own) wife, and he told it to her. (typical use of moo 'too' indicating parallel action §8.5.5) ; same, / kaa i jow i-i dira, hal i too—, 3P1S set-off, 3P1S come 3P1S take 3PlS-Impf walk, until 3P1S reach—, They (=Amadou and griot) set off, they went and began their trip, until they reached—, (jow 'become actively involved in ...' is usually a serial verb followed by infinitival VP, but for this speaker it has imperfective indicative complements §9.5.3) i too mopti i kani, i bisa hal i too—, 3P1S reach Mopti 3P1S lie-down, 3P1S pass until 3P1S reach—, they reached Mopti. They lodged overnight. They went on until they reached—,

Text

437

surgu-saarey, saa di kaa i too kaa i honno surgu di yo, Tuareg-cemetery, time Def Rel 3 PIS arrive when 3P1S espy Tuareg Def PI, Tuareg-cemetery (place). When they had arrived, when they espied the Tuaregs, (surgu-saarey, name of a place near Toya in the province of Timbuktu) surgu di yo tiisa ka bow, saa di kaa i Tuareg Def PI do-much Inf be-much, time Def Rel 3P1S the Tuaregs became very numerous. When they (=Tuaregs) came,

kaa come

i Sinti, i jow i-i yenje, mais a jow 3P1S begin, 3P1S take 3PlS-Impf fight, but 3SgS take they began, they launched into battle. But he (=Amadou) launched a-a yepje surgu di yo hal surgu di yo kul 3SgS-Impf fight Tuareg Def PI until Tuareg Def PI all into fighting the Tuaregs until all of the Tuaregs were wiped out.

ben, finish,

boro jorjgu hinja nda waranja cindi hinja bow di kaa person hundred three and thirty remainder three person Def Rel Three hundred thirty men, the man (=men) who (boro di here singular in form, but denoting a collectivity, cf. 3P1 below) a banda, a har i se kaa i ma yee, be 3Sg behind, 3SgS say 3P1 Dat that 3P1S Subju return, were with him (=Amadou), he told them to go back, ; ma koy har seeku 3P1S Subju go say S6kou and to go ask Sekou to send here

se kaa a ma samba-kata Dat that 3SgS Subju send-Centrip

qgu se boro rjgu ta ijgu^ o hima ka bun LogoSg Dat person LogoSg Top LogoSgS Impf ought Inf die some people (=reinforcements) to him; as for himself, he was destined to die aljumaa di^ alaasara, saa di kaa boro Friday Def afternoon-prayer, time Def Rel person on Friday at the late-afternoon prayer. When the people— ,

di yo— , Def PI — ,

i sarre i koy, a kar alwalaa, a jiqgar, 3P1S set-off 3P1S go, 3SgS hit ablution, 3SgS pray, (when) they had departed and gone, he (=Amadou) did the ablutions and prayed. a har qgu wane maabe di se a ma 3SgS say 3ReflSgPoss griot Def Dat 3SgS Subju He (=Amadou) told his griot to go fetch

koy go

kate bring

438

Text

rjgu

se

hari, kaa

rjgu

fun,

maabe di

koy

LogoSg Dat water, Rel LogoSgS drink, griot Def go some water for him, for him (=Amadou) to drink. The griot went, ('water [for X to drink]' construction often with perfective aspect §7.2.2) a gar woy hirjka kaa— i-l·—, i-i fiumey-ndi, 3SgS find woman two Rel— 3PlS-Impf—, 3PlS-Impf bathe-Caus, He (=griot) encountered two women who—, they were—, they were washing clothes. i Silili i har a se—, a har i se 3P1S ululate 3P1S say 3Sg Dat—, 3SgS say 3P1 Dat They cried for joy (welcoming him). They asked him—, (or rather) he asked them i ma noo rjgu se hari 3P1S Subju give LogoSg Dat water to give him some water for him (=griot) to drink.

kaa Rel

rjgu ftin LogoSg drink

i har a se kaa rjgi-ye si hin ka noo 3P1S say 3Sg Dat that LogoPIS ImpfNeg can Inf give They (=women) told him that they could not give him water

ga hari 3SgO water

kaa a Rin, maa se, rjgi-yo^ o ta duu yow yo Rel 3SgS drink, what? Dat, LogoPIS Impf Put get guest PI for him to drink, because they were going to have (=were expecting) some guests, kaa ci, aamadu samburu koolado dursudi nda rjgu wane maabe di, Rel be, Amadou Sambourou Kolado Doursoudi and 3ReflSgPoss griot Def, namely, Amadou Sambourou Kolado Doursoudi and his griot; (reflexive possessor in conjoined NP of type '[X and hisx Y]' §10.2.4) i hima ka gulli a! oijoo alaaxara, 3P1S ought Inf come-in-evening ah! tonight Hereafter, they (=Amadou and griot) were destined for the Hereafter that evening; (here the griot learns that he too is destined to die with Amadou) rjgi-yo boro hirjka di rjga δι rjgi-ya wane w nde di LogoPl person two Def SFoc be 3P1F Poss wife Def the two of them (=women) were their (=Amadou's & griot's) wives; (for 'the two of them' see §5.4.8) saa di rjgi-ye goo dene kuna rjgi-ye si hin ka time Def LogoPIS be hurry Loc LogoPIS ImpfNeg can Inf so, they (=women) were in a hurry and they couldn't give him (=griot) ('be [in hurry]' is a marked progressive construction §7.2.6)

yo, PI

noo give

ga 3SgO

Text

439

hari, maabe di koy a bar ga aamadu se, water, griot Def go 3SgS say 3SgO Amadou Dat, any water. The griot went and told it (=this) to Amadou. ('any water' is the end of the long indirect quotation beginning 'they said ...') a bar a se, jaka qga ta a-a bey kaa 3SgS say 3Sg Dat, lo! 3SgF Top 3SgS-Impf know that He (=griot) told him, lo!, (in reality) he (=Amadou) knew that

ο

bun, a

si

bar

ga

ijgu

se,

LogoSgS Impf die, 3SgS ImpfNeg say 3SgO LogoSg Dat he (=griot) was going to die, (but) he (=Amadou) wasn't telling it to him; (the first rjgu denotes the griot, though grammatically it could also denote Amadou) a-a jamba, aamadu bar a se kaa tjgu nga^ ο bun, 3SgS-Impf deceive, Amadou say 3Sg Dat that LogoSg SFoc Impf die, he was being deceptive. Amadou told him that it was he (=Amadou) who would die; ('he was being deceptive' is arguably still within the griot' s reported speech; subjectfocus with nga §8.1.1 stresses that Amadou, hence implicitly not the griot, will die)

ο baa qga ta ma koy a ma si LogoSgS Impf want 3SgF Top Subju go 3SgS Subju Neg he (=Amadou) wanted him (=griot) to go (afterwards) and not die. (weak Topic morpheme ta in nga ta §8.4.3) maabe di jow qgu wane yenje jiney di griot Def take SReflSg Poss fight implement Def The griot took his battle gear. (yenje jiney is a tight compound §4.6.1, could be hyphenated)

bun, die,

yo PI

a kow ngu tira di yo a jur a hirow 3SgS take-out 3ReflSg amulet Def PI 3SgS run 3SgS enter He (=griot) took out his amulets (of protection). He (=griot) rushed into surgu di ye ra, surgu di yo wii ga, Tuareg Def PI Loc, Tuareg Def PI kill 3SgO, the midst of the Tuaregs. The Tuaregs killed him. aamadu jow-kata maabe di, a jirjgar a Amadou take-Centrip griot Def, 3SgS pray 3Sg Amadou took (the body of) the griot. He prayed over him.

beene on-top

a kar alwalaa a jingar a beene a jisi ga, 3SgS hit ablution 3SgS pray 3Sg on-top 3SgS put-down 3SgO, He (=Amadou) did the ablutions and prayed over him. He put him (=corpse) down,

440

Text

a kasanöe ga a koy a ßöi ga, 3SgS enshroud 3SgO 3SgS go 3SgS bury 3SgO, He put a shroud around him, he went and he buried him. a duu ka goto hal a jiijgar aljumaa di alaasara, 3SgS get Inf sit until 3SgS pray Friday Def afternoon-prayer He then sat (=waited) until he prayed the afternoon Friday prayer. a jifjgar alaasara a duu ka kar alwalaa, 3SgS pray afternoon-prayer 3SgS get Inf hit ablution, He prayed the afternoon prayer. He proceeded to do the ablutions, (then) a jirjgar, a duu ka kow qgu wane tira di yo 3SgS pray, 3SgS get Inf take-out 3ReflSg Poss amulet Def PI he prayed. He proceeded to take out his (own) amulets. a jisi gi, a kata qgu wane kasanoe di^ 3SgS put-down 3P1O, 3SgS bring 3ReflSgPoss shroud Def He deposited them (=amulets). He brought his (own) shroud, (we learn later that the amulets were put in the horse's saddlebags as a message) a hirow a kuna a kani, a bar surgu di yo 3SgS enter 3Sg Loc 3SgS lie-down, 3SgS say Tuareg Def PI He got into it (=shroud). He lay down. He told the Tuaregs i ma hay gu, surgu di yo hay 3P1S Subju jab LogoSgO,Tuareg Def PI jab to pierce him (with a sword). The Tuaregs pierced him.

se Dat

ga, 3SgO

a bun, ban di jur a koy hirow hamdattaay— 3SgS die, horse Def run 3SgS go enter Hamdallahi He died. The (=his) horse galloped, it went and entered Hamdallahi (town). a na too hala hamdallaay 3SgS Neg reach as-far-as Hamdallahi It didn't reach Hamdallahi until ('not... except' construction §8.5.4)

kala except

suba di wane adduhaa di ra, a gar seeku aamadu tomorrow Def Poss morning Def Loc, 3SgS find S6kou Amadou in the mid-morning of the next day. It happened that S6kou Amadou (Se"kou Amadou = full name of Se"kou, distinct from the other Amadou; 3SgS a in a gar could conceivably denote the horse but here it is probably abstract)

Text

441

nda aamadü woo wane baba di, i-i boyrey ganji di ra, and Amadou DemPoss father Def, 3PlS-Impfconverse wilderness Def Loc and this Amadou's father, they were conversing out in the bush, ('this Amadou' = the protagonist Amadou Sambourou ...; 'the bush' here means anywhere outside of settled areas) woo di har a se, 'seeku ?' a bar 'm?' Dem Def say 3Sg Dat, 'Sokou?' 3SgS say 'huh?' That one (=Amadou's father) said to him, 'S6kou?' He (=Se"kou) said, 'what?' 'jaa ije-meyre di yo koy yer na duu rjgi wane alxabar,' 'since child-small Def PI go 1P1S Neg get 3P1F Poss news,' (Father:) 'Ever since the boys went away (to fight), we haven't had news of them.' a bar a se kaa 'ije-meyre 3SgS say 3Sg Dat that 'child-small He (=Sekou) replied to him, '(concerning) the boys,

di Def

yo PI

ni si baa i-kur parceque ni ije foo di 2SgS ImpfNeg inquire AbsolPl-all because 2Sg child one Def you're not (really) asking about all of them; (it's) because your son (=Amadou) alone

kaa

goo^ i

ra,

woo di

se

na no-o

hää

Rel be" 3P1 Loc, Dem Def Dat Foe 2SgS-Impf inquire who is among them (=boys), that's why you are asking about it.' (woo di se is focalized postpositional phrase)

ga,' 3SgO,'

a bar a se kaa_^ a na ci—, a na ci 3SgS say 3Sg Dat Ref 3SgS Neg be—, 3SgS Neg be He (=father) replied to him that it wasn't—, it wasn't rjgu wane ije foo di, aljamaa kaa koy, rjgi-ye na duu LogoSg Poss child one Def, group Rel go, LogoPIS Neg get his own son alone; the group (=army) that had gone, they (two) had not had rjgi alxabar rjgu si bey i bun wala i buna, 3P1F news LogoSgS ImpfNeg know 3PlSdie or 3P1S live, any news of them; he (=father) didn't know whether they were dead or alive. haya keyna ban di kaa, a kaa ta gar a jow thing small horse Def come, 3SgS come Inf find 3SgS take Shortly thereafter the horse arrived. It happened that he (=Amadou) had taken (haya keyna 'little thing' often has temporal sense 'a while') rjgu wane citaab di, a kan^ndi a 3ReflSg Poss book Def, 3SgS lie-lcaus 3Sg his (own) Koran, (and) he had laid on top of it (=book) (citaab-kitaaw denotes a Koran as a physical object)

beene, on-top,

442

Text

ijgu bomo di, seeku bar a sc 3ReflSghead Def, SSkou say 3Sg Dat his own head. Sdkou had told him (This seems to be a report of an earlier dialogue between Sdkou and Amadou) 'kow oitaab di bcene ni bomo di,' a bar a se 'take-off book Def on-top 2Sg head Def,' 3SgS say 3Sg Dat 'take your head from off the top of the book.' He (=Amadou) had said to him kaa rjgu bomo di qga nda that LogoSg head Def 3SgF and that his (own) head, it (=head) and the Koran were

oitaab di book Def

kul all

££ a-foo, parceque haya kul kaa goo titaab di kuna, be Absol-one, because thing all Rel be book Def in, one and the same, because everything which was (written) in the Koran, a goo ggu bomo di ra, a bar a se 3SgS be LogoSg head Def Loc, 3SgS say 3Sg Dat it was (also) in his head. He (=S6kou?) said to him (=father) (i.e., Amadou claims that he has memorized the Koranic text and has thus become mystically consubstantial with the tome) kaa aywa ban di kaa ban di kaa i koy Rel well, horse Def come horse Def come 3 PI S go that, well, the horse had come, the horse had come. They (=S6kou and father) went i feer ga i fuuney, qga wane daggaa di woo 3P1S open 3SgO 3PIS search, 3SgF Poss saddlebag Def Dem They untied it (=saddlebag) and they searched. This saddlebag of his (=Amadou's) kaa goo jere di yo beene, i gar a Rel be side Def PI on-top, 3P1S find 3Sg which was up on the (horse's) sides, they found in it (long 'saddlebag' NP including relative clause is a preposed topic NP)

kuna in

tira di kaa aamadu bun, qgu maabe di bun amulet Def that Amadou die, LogoSg griot Def die the amulet (indicating) that Amadou had died; (first) his griot had died, ('amulet' is treated as a message from Amadou, hence logophoric possessor in qgu maabe di coindexed with Amadou; /aamadu bun/ is chronologically out of order and the narrator will repair this) woo di banda aamadu kaa ta bun, bari di kaa, Dem Def behind Amadou come Inf die, horse Def come, (and) Amadou had died after that. The horse came (as a messenger). (kaa ta ... 'come and ...' often used to indicate a brief lapse of time §9.7.7)

References

[Anonymous] 1936 Yer wane Koy di Yesou Almasihou wane alahidou too di. [New Testament]. Edinburgh: Sociite" Biblique Nationale d'Ecosse. [copy at Widener Library, Harvard] Dupuis-Yacouba, Auguste 1917 Essai de methode pratique pour Vetude de la songue songoi. Paris: Maisonneuve. Greenberg, Joseph 1966 Languages of Africa. (2nd, revised edition.) Bloomington: Indiana University; the Hague: Mouton. Hacquard, Augustin & Auguste Dupuis-Yakouba 1897 Manuel de la langue Songay parlee de Tombouctou a Say dans la boucle du Niger. Paris: Maisonneuve. Heath, Jeffrey in press-a Texts in Koyra Chiini; Songhay of Timbuktu, Mali. (Wortkunst und Dokumentartexte in afrikanischen Sprachen, 5.) Cologne: Rüdiger Koppe Verlag, [texts from Timbuktu, Niafunko, and Djenni in press-b Dictionnaire songhay - anglais - franqais /Songhay - English - French Dictionary, vol. 1: Koyra Chiini. Paris: I'Harmattan. in press-c Dictionnaire songhay - anglais - franqais / Songhay - English - French Dictionary, vol. 2: Djenne Chiini. Paris: I'Harmattan. Nicolai', Robert 1978 "Les parlers songhay occidentaux", Studies in African Linguistics 9:1-34. Nicolai', Robert 1981 Les dialectes du Songhay. Paris: SELAF. Nicolai, Robert 1982 "Position, structure, and classification of Songay", in: L. Bender (ed.), Nilo-Saharan Language Studies, pp. 11-41. Lansing MI: Michigan State Univ. Nicolai', Robert 1984 Preliminaires a une etude sur l'origine du Songhay: Matlriaux., problematique et hypotheses. (Marburger Studien zur Afrika- und Asienkunde, Serie A: Afrika, 37.) Berlin: Reimer. Nicolai, Robert 1990 Parentes linguistiques (a propos du Songhay). Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Sanankoua, Bintou 1990 Un empire peul au XIX1 siede. Paris: Karthala.

444

References

Shopen, Tim & Konar6, M. 1970 "Sonrai causatives and passives: transformational versus lexical derivations for propositions heads", Studies in African Linguistics 1:211-54. Zouber, Mahmoud Abdou 1983 Traditions historiques Songhoy (Tindirma, Monkoyra, Arham). Niamey (Republic of Niger): Organisation de l'Unit6 Africaine, Centre deludes Linguistiques et Historiques par Tradition Orale, [texts from villages near Dire", dialect similar to Goundam]

Morpheme Index

Affixes, grammatically interesting morphemes, and selected stems arc listed below with section references, generally in descending order of significance. In alphabetical ordering vowel length is disregarded, and velar nasal is treated as n. a aabada a koy di allaa alwakati ammaa a na öi ay, ey baa baada banda bara

ben beene beer bey bibi bilaa bine bisa bobo bomo bor boon boro, bor bow boyro *-ce cee

3Sg pronoun 4.1.4, 4.3.4, 3.8.8 Absolute prefix 4.5.1 'never' 9.3.4 'the person' 10.3.2 Only' 8.5.2, 8.5.6 'time, moment' 11.1.4 'but' 9.5.5 higher-level negation 9.3.2 ISg pronoun 4.1.4, 3.8.1 (phonology) a) 'want' with subjunctive 9.6.1 b) 'be about to' as serial verb 9.7.5 'indeed' 8.5.8 'behind' 5.9.7, 11.1.2 a) 'except' 5.9.9, 8.5.3 b) existential quasi-verb 7.1.3 c) impersonal 'must' 9.6.2, 7.1.3 d) in strong assertions 9.5.9 serial verb 'finish doing' 9.7.5 'above' 5.9.7, 11.1.2 'big' 4.6.6 (compound final) a) 'know' 9.5.8, 6.1.4, 4.3.1, 6.2.2, 8.2.5, 8.2.7 b) serial verb 'have ever done' 9.7.5 'black' 4.4.2 'without' 5.9.9, 9.6.4 (subjunctive) a) Topic morpheme 5.8.2,8.4.1 b) noun 'heart' in emotion expressions 11.4 a) serial verb 'surpass' in comparatives 9.7.8 b) verb 'pass by, keep going' 11.1.3 'many' 4.4.2, 5.4.6 'head'in reflexives 10.2.1 —> boro 'be pretty, good' 4.4.2 'person' 10.3.1 (generic), 3.8.7 'be many' 4.4.2, 5.4.6 'pretty, good' 4.4.2 frozen ending of kin terms 4.6.6 'time(s)' 5.4.9,9.3.1

446

Morpheme index

terbu iere δί Sire diina Sindi

Sinne daa dee di dira doo doo di dooti duu

ey -ey faaba faati foo ga gaa game giji gaaba-ndi ganda gar

go goo guu guna hajje hal.har han.handi bar -bar haya,hay hayafoo

'show' 6.1.4,6.2.4,9.1.2 'friend'as reciprocal 10.2.5-6,5.9.10 ('together') equational quasi-verb'be' 7.1.1,9.5.9 'under' 5.9.7, 11.1.2 'be small' 4.4.2 a) serial verb 'keep doing' 9.7.5 b) with imperfective complement 9.5.3 c) —> woy-£indi'peer, similar one* 8.5.6 Emphatic particle 8.5.1-2, 5.8.3, 4.2.4 Emphatic particle 5.8.3, 8.5.7 Definite 5.6 'be in motion, walk' 11.1.3 'chez' postposition 5.9.6, 11.1.2 —> dooti 'there' 4.2.3 a) 'get' 4.3.1 b) serial verb 'proceed to' 9.7.5 —> ISg ay Abstractive suffix 4.3.1, 3.7.6 (phonology) serial verb 'help' 9.7.3 serial verb 'have already done' 9.7.5 a) One' 4.5.1,9.3.4 (negated) b) 'which?' 8.2.2,4.5.1 a) 3Sg Object pronoun 4.1.4, 3.8.8 b) On, by, from' postposition 5.9.5, 6.1.5, 11.1.2 a) Presentative 7.2.3 b) clause-final Emphatic 8.5.7 'between' 5.9.10 3P1 Object pronoun 3.8.8 'try hard' 3.8.6 'land; down' 4.2.1 a) transitive verb'find' 6.1.1 b) verb 'find (situation)' 9.5.9, 9.7.10 —> ο locational quasi-verb 7.1.2,7.2.3.7.2.6 'five' 4.5.1 'see' 9.5.9 (with complement) —> haywana 'until' 5.9.8 (with NP), 9.5.6 (subjunctive), 9.6.4, 11.1.5, 3.10.10 'day' 8.3.6, 3.8.7 (phonology) a) 'say' 6.1.4,9.6.3, 10.1.1 b) —> hal '-male* as compound final 4.6.3 'thing' 3.8.7 'anything' 7.1.5

Morpheme index haya-jje haywana hentu here hima hin hinne tiisa hod boron, honnhun huneyno i i*-i iddu

ije *-iya jaa jaman jarjgu jaatijaatir jember Jen -jeney jere β jinaa jine joqgujaqgu jow jum-di ka kaa

kala

—> haywana 'whatchamacallit?' 8.2.6, 7.1.5 (as verb) Over there* 4.2.3 Approximative 4.2.4 a) 'resemble' 6.2.5 b) serial verb 'should' 9.7.4 serial verb 'be able' 9.7.4, 4.3.1 'amount' 8.2.3 a) serial verb 'do very much' 9.7.6 b) reflexive verb 'get ready' 10.2.3 'today* 4.2.2, 11.1.4 'bitter' 3.7.7 (Syncope), 4.3.1, 4.4.2 'leave, go from' 11.1.3 'by oneself, unfettered' 8.5.1 3P1 pronoun 4.1.4, 3.8.8 Absolute prefix 4.4.3,4.3.4,4.5.1 frozen nominalizing suffix 4.3.2 'six' 4.5.1 '-child' as compound final 4.6.2, 3.8.3 (phonology) frozen diminutive suffix 4.6.9 'since, from (time)' 5.9.8 (with NP), 9.5.6 (with clause), 1 1.1.5 'era' 11.1.4 — >joqgu Emphatic 8.5.1 'thousand' 4.5.1-2 serial verb 'fail' 9.3.2, 9.7.6 'lack of suffix 4.6.5, 4.3.1, 9.3.2 'beside' 5.9.7 a) verb 'precede' 9.6. 1 b) serial verb 'do before' 9.7.5 c) adverb 'first' 9.3.1, 9.3.5 (negated) 'in front of 5.9.7 'hundred' 4.5.1-2 a) with imperfective complement 9.5.3 b) serial verb 'do energetically' 9.7.5 irregular Causative 'take down' 3.8.6 Infinitival morpheme 9.7, 6.3.2, 4.3.5 a) 'come' 6.2.1, 6.2.5, 6.3.3, 7.2.3, 7.2.5, 11.1.3 b) serial verb 'come' 9.7.7, 9.7.9 c) transitive 'become' 6.2. 1 d) Relative morpheme 8.3 e) 'that' complementizer 9.5.8 f) 'when ...' 8.3.10 a) 'except' 5.9.9, 8.5.3 b) rare 'that' complementizer 9.5.8

447

448

Morpheme index

kaa na kaana-ndi kan-ndi -kasine kate -kate keyna koo.koog-kom koon koron.konnkoy -koy koyne -koyni kuu kuboy kuku kul kuna kus! laabudda lawal ma maa man mana,mane ma na marje.merje maa se maasu -me mee mere mey mise.musoo moo mor&o moreyda mooso

'that' complementizer 9.5.8, 8.3.6 'sweeten' 3.8.6 'lay down' 3.8.6 '-mate' 4.6.7,4.3.1 a) 'bring' 6.1.3 b) 'bring it about that...' (subjunctive) 9.6.1 Centripetal 6.3.3 'little' 4.6.6 (compound final), 4.7 (reduplication) 'dry' 4.3.1,4.4.2 Characteristic suffix 4.3.3 'bare, sole' 8.5.2 'hot' 3.7.7 (Syncope), 4.3.1, 4.4.2 'go' 6.1.3,6.2.5,9.7.7,9.7.9,11.1.3 Characteristic suffix 4.3.3 'again' 9.3.1, 9.3.5 (negated) Characteristic suffix 4.3.3 'be long, tall' 4.4.2 a) 'meet' 6.1.3 b) 'be possible (that)' 9.7.4 'long, tall' 4.4.2 'all' 5.4.3,9.3.4 (negated), 9.5.10 (right-edge marker) Locative postposition 5.9.4,11.1.2 Only' 8.5.2 'necessarily' 8.5.4 'first' (ordinal) 4.3.4 a) Subjunctive 7.2.1, 7.2.4, 9.6 b) 2Sg subject Subjunctive 3.8.2 a) 'what?' 8.2.2,7.1.5 (as verb) b) 'either ...' 9.5.4 'where?' 8.2.2 2Sg Dative 3.8.2 2Sg subject plus Neg 3.8.2 'how much?, how many" 8.2.2 a) 'why?' 8.2.3 b) 'because' 9.5.7 'inside' 5.9.7, 11.1.2 frozen ending in kin terms 4.6.6 Emphatic 8.5.7 'but' 9.5.5 a) 'have' 7.1.4,4.3.1 b) 'who?' 8.2.2 'manner, way' 4.2.2, 8.2.3, 8.3.6 'also' 5.8.3, 8.5.5, 9.3.5 (negated) 'be unable* 9.3.2, 9.7.6, 4.3.1 'now' 11.1.4,5.2.3 'slowly, gently' 9.3.1

Morpheme index mote musoo π na

ηaa nan

naqgu-norjgu nda

-nda ndaw a na δι -ndi nee

qgi-yo

Jjgu-yo

ni,n nin noo nono qu -fiaa

o,go -o -nte ra -rey saa saa di

saa di kaa saa foo sanda

sawa se si sii ta

taka

449

'how?' 8.2.2

—> mise —> ni a) non-subject Focus morpheme 5.8.1, 8.1.1 b) perfective Negative morpheme 7.2.1, 9.3.2 'eat' 6.2.2 a) 'let, allow' 9.6.1 b) contraction of naqgu in nan^ kaa and na 'place' 4.6.7 (compound final), 3.8.7 (phonology), 8.3.6 a) 'with, and' 5.11,4.1.6,6.1.6 b) 'if in conditionals 9.5.1 'with' as verb suffix 6.2.5 'unless' 8.5.3 Factitive-Causative or Mediopassive 6.2.2-4, 3.8.6 (irregular forms) 'here' 4.2.3 a) Subject Focus morpheme 5.8.1, 8.1.2 b) Full 3Sg pronoun 3.8.8, 8.4.2 a) Full 3P1 pronoun 3.8.8, 8.4.2 b) —> qgu-yo a) Logophoric Sg pronoun 3.8.8,10.1 b) 3rd person Reflexive Sg pronoun 3.8.1, 10.2.2-3 a) Logophoric PI pronoun 3.8.8, 10.1, 10.4.2 b) 3rd person Reflexive PI pronoun 3.8.1, 10.2.2-3, 10.4.1 2Sg pronoun 4.1.4, 3.8.2 (phonology) Only' 8.5.2,5.8.3 'give' 6.1.4,9.1.2 identificational quasi- verb 'it is' 7.1.1

'-mother' as compound final 4.6.2 Imperfective 7.2.1-2 Adjective suffix 4.4.2 Participle or Ordinal suffix 4.3.4 Locative postposition 5.9.4,7.2.6, 11.1.2 nominalizing suffix 4.3.1 'time' 11.1.4 'then, so' 11.1.4, 8.4.3 (383-4), 9.3.1, 9.5.1, 9.5.10 (541) 'when...' 8.3.6 'when?' 8.2.3 'like' 8.5.6,9.6.5 'be equal' 6.2.5, 9.7.8 (comparatives) Dative postposition 5.9.2 Imperfective Negative 7.2.1, 9.3.2 negative locational quasi- verb 7.1.2, 9.3.2 a) weak Topic morpheme 5.8.2, 8.4.3 b) Future morpheme 7.2.5 'manner' 8.2.3, 8.5.6

450

Morpheme index

tamba tan tenje,tanje -ferey tilasu tin,tim,tintoo wala

wallaahi wane war, wor waati wo woo wor woy -woy woy^cindiwoy-du woy-gu ya yaa yaada ye yee yeenyene yer yey,yeenyo,ye,ya

'quickly' 9.3.1 Only' 8.5.3,5.8.3 'facing' 5.9.7, 11.1.2 nominal of essential nature 4.6.4 'be necessary' 6.2.5, 9.6.2 'heavy' 4.3.1,4.4.2 a) verb 'arrive at, attain' 11.1.3, 11.1.6 b) 'equal' in comparatives 9.7.8 a) Or' 5.11.5,4.5.1 b) 'whether' 9.5.4 c)'even' 8.5.9 d) 'even if...' 9.5.1 'by God' in oaths 8.5.8 Possessive postposition 5.2, 3.8.4 (contracts to wan) 2P1 pronoun 4.1.4 'time, moment' 11.1.4 2P1 imperative 7.3 'this, that' demonstrative 4.2, 5.5, 3.7.5 (contractions) —> war 'ten' 4.5.1 '-woman' as compound final 4.6.3 '-teen' 4.5.2 'sixty' 4.5.2 'fifty* 4.5.2 —> PI yo Emphatic morpheme 8.5.1, 5.8.3 'free, worthless' 9.3.2 a) ISgSSubju 3.8.1 b) _> pi yo a) ISgSImpf 3.8.1 b) 'go back' 6.3.3, 6.2.5 c) serial verb 'do again, repeat' 9.7.5 —> yey ISg Dative 3.8.1 1P1 pronoun 4.1.4 'cold' 4.3.1,4.4.2 Plural 5.7, 3.8.5 (phonology), 4.1.2 (pronouns), 10.4.3 (relatives)

Subject Index

Absolute with adjectives 4.4.3 with numerals 4.5.1 Abstractive 4.3.1 adjectives forms 4.4-5 Adjective suffix 4.4.2 syntax 5.3 adverbiale 9.3.1,9.3.5 demonstrative 4.2.3 'again' 9.3.5 (negated) agentives see Characteristic nominale 'all' see universal quantifier 'also' 8.5.5 'and' see conjunction apheresis 3.7.8 apposition 5.10 Approximative 4.2.4 Arabic loanwords 3.10.11 aspect 7.2.2, 7.2.6 assimilation rules (consonants) 3.6 background clauses 9.5.10 'be' see equational, identificational, locational 'because' 9.5.7 'before...' 9.5.6 'between' 5.9.10 body parts 11.7 case see postpositions, prepositions causation a) see Factitive-Causative b) 'bring about that...' 9.6.2 Centripetal 6.3.3 Characteristic nominals 4.3.3 'chez' 5.9.6, 11.1.2 clause indicative complements 9.5.1-9 subjunctive complements 9.6 cliticization 9.1.1 color 4.4.2 cognate object 6.1.7

Comitative see InstrumentalComitative comparatives 9.7.8 complement clauses 9.4 compounds nominal 4.6 tight versus loose 3.9.2 noun-verb 6.3.1 verb-verb 6.3.2 conditionals 9.5.1 conjunction ofNPs 5.11.1-2 of clauses 9.5.2-3 consonants 3.1 clusters 3.5.7-8 nasal 3.1,3.4.2 contraction rules (vowels) 3.7 control verbs 9.7.3 Dative 5.9.2,6.1.4,9.1.1-2 Definite 5.6 demonstratives forms 4.2 syntax 5.5 frozen compounds 3.7.5, 4.2.2 diminutives 4.6.9 diphthongs 3.3 discourse-functional morphemes 5.8.3-5 disjunction see Or' echoic utterances indicative (yes-no answers) 8.2.1 subjunctive 9.6.6 emotion terms 11.4 Emphatic particles 8.5 for demonstratives 4.2.3 enclitics 9.1.1 equational quasi-verb'be' 7.1.1 'every' see universal quantifier 'except' 5.9.9,8.5.3 'exist' 7.1.3 existential quantification 5.4.2 exposed positions 8.4.2

452

Subject index

extraction 8.1, 8.2.2, 8.3 Factitive-Causative 6.2.2 flora-fauna 11.6 localization 8.1 Focus morphemes 5.8.1 French loanwords 3.10.11 (phonology) 'from' 11.1.2 Full third person pronouns 8.4.2 Future 7.2.5 geminate cluster simplification 3.6.5 generic reference 10.3.1 Genitive see possessives 'give' 9.1.2,6.1.4 'go' 6.1.3,6.2.5,9.7.9 'help' 9.7.3 'how?' 8.2.3 identificational quasi-verb 7.1.1 imperatives 7.3 Imperfective aspect 7.2.2 Imperfective morpheme 7.2.1, 3.7.1 (phonology) impersonal 6.1.1 indicative complements 9.5 Infinitival VPs 9.7 as nominalizations 4.3.5 in situ 8.2.4 Instrumental-Comitative 5.11,6.1.6 verb suffix 6.2.5 intensifiers 9.2 interrogatives 8.2 jussives 9.6.3 kinship 11.5, 4.6.6 'know' 6.1.4,8.2.5 length see vowels lengthen! ng (of vowel) 3.7.10 'let' 9.6.1 ligatures 1.4 'like' 8.5.6 liquid assimilation 3.6.2 Locational Phrase 5.12 locational quasi-verb 7.1.2 in Progressive 7.2.6 Locative 5.9.4,6.1.5, 11.1.2 with demonstrative adverb 4.2.4 in partitives 5.4.10

in Progressive 7.2.6 Logophoric pronouns 10.1, 4.1.4 (forms) 'maybe' 9.6.8,9.7.4 Mediopassive 6.2.3 modal serial verbs 9.7.4 mood-aspect-negation (MAN) 7.2 'must' 9.6.2,7.1.3 nasal assimilation 3.6.1 nasalized vowels 3.4 negation negative morphemes 7.2.1 higher-level (metalinguistic) 9.3.2 logical interactions 9.3.2-5 polarity items 9.3.4 triggering subjunctive 9.6.7 negative serial verbs 9.7.7 nominalization 4.3 zero-derived 4.3.2 noun 5.1 noun phrase 5.1 number see Plural numerals 4.5.1, 5.4 compound 4.5.3 oaths (strong assertions) 9.5.9 objects 6.1, 9.1.1 double direct objects 9.1.2 obligational see 'must' One' 4.5.1-2,5.4.1 Only' 8.5.2, 8.5.4, 9.3.5 (negated) Or' 5.11.6, 9.5.2 (clauses) ordering of postverbal material 9.1.1 ordinals 4.3.4 palatalization 3.6.3,3.10.5 Participle 4.3.4 partitive 5.4.10 partonyms 11.7 passive see Mediopassive perception verbs 11.3 perfective aspect 7.2.2 person (pronominal) 4.1.1 Plural nominal 5.7 pronominal 4.1.2-3

Subject index possessives 5.2 Possessive postposition 5.9.3 predications 7.1.4 quantification 9.3.6 postpositions 5.9, 8.3.3, 8.3.9 predicates 7.1 Presentative 7.2.3 Progressive 7.2.6 pronouns 4.1 ISg allomorphs 3.8.1 2Sg allomorphs 3.8.2 quantifiers forms 4.5 syntax-semantics 5.4 verb quantification 9.7.6 and possession 9.3.6 quasi-verbs 7.1.1-3, 6.1.1 questions see interrogatives reduplication nominal and adjectival 4.7 distributive 5.4.4 reciprocals 10.2.5-6 reflexives 10.2.1-4 3Refl pronouns 4.1.4, 10.2.2 compound reflexives 10.2.1 reflexive verbs 10.2.3 relative clauses 8.3.1-9 Relative morpheme 8.3 appositional 5.10.2 Relative morpheme relativization 8.3 reported speech 9.6.3 resumptive pronoun 8.1.1-2, 8.3 right-edge markers 9.5.10 'say' 6.1.4 serial verbs 9.7.2-10 semivowel assimilation 3.6.3 shortening of vowels 3.7.9 'show* 9.1.2,6.1.4 similative 8.5.6 'since' 5.9.8 sloppy coreferentiality 10.4 stress 3.9.2 subjects 6.1.1 subjunctive mood 7.2.4, 9.6 Subjunctive morpheme 7.2.1

syllabification 3.5 syncope 3.7.7 tag questions 8.2.7 Temporal Phrase 5.12 tense see Future 'that* complementizer 9.5.8 time-of-day verbs 9.5.3 topicalization 8.4, 8.6.4 Topic morphemes 5.8.2 trace 8.1.1 transcription 1.4 transitivity 6.1.2-4 universal quantifier 5.4.3 'unless' 8.5.3 'until' 5.9.8 verbs voice classes 6.1.1-6 of adjectival quality 4.4.1 verb phrase 7.1 infinitival 9.7 voice (of verbs) 6.1-2 vowels long 3.2,3.5.5-6 oral 3.2 nasalized 3.4 VV-Contraction 3.7.1 'want' 9.6 weather predicates 11.2, 6.1.1 WH-questions 8.2.2-5 'what?' 8.2.2 as verb 7.1.5 'whatchamacallit?' 8.2.6 as verb 7.1.5 'when?' 8.2.3 'when ...' 8.3.6, 8.3.10 'while...' 9.5.3 'who?' 8.2.2 'why?' 8.2.3 'without' 5.9.9,9.5.3 zero derivation 4.3.2, 6.2.1

453

Mouton Grammar Library Edited by Georg Bossong and Bernard Comrie Mouton de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

1 Lyle Campbell, The Pipil Language of El Salvador. 1985. 2 Ian J. Press, A Grammar of Modern Breton. 1986. 3 Gunter Senft, Kilivila. The Language of the Trobriand Islanders. 1986. 4 George van Driem, A Grammar of Limbu. 1987. 5 Keren D. Rice, A Grammar of Slave. 1989. 6 Lorna MacDonald, A Grammar of Tauya. 1990. 7 Michael Noonan, Λ Grammar ofLango. 1992. 8 Bruce C. Donaldson, A Grammar of Afrikaans. 1993. 9 Martin Haspelmath, A Grammar ofLezgian. 1993. 10 George van Driem, Λ Grammar of Dumi. 1993. 11 Francesca C. Merlan, A Grammar ofWardaman. A Language of the Northern Territory of Australia. 1994. 12 Silvia Kouwenberg, A Grammar ofBerbice Dutch Creole. 1994. 13 Anthony Liddicoat, A Grammar of the Norman French of the Channel Islands. The Dialects of Jersey and Sark. 1994. 14 Robert Carlson, A Grammar of Supyire. 1994. 15 Nicholas D. Evans, A Grammar ofKayardild. With Historical-Comparative Notes on Tangkic. 1995. 16 G. Tucker Childs, A Grammar ofKisi. A Southern Atlantic Language. 1995. 17 Shobhana L. Chelliah, A Grammar ofMeithei. 1997. 18 Marian Klamer, A Grammar ofKambera. 1998. 19 Jeffrey Heath, A Grammar of Koyra Chiini. The Songhay of Timbuktu. 1998.

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